Chapter XVIII: The Empire of the Almohades (3)

The commencement of the reign of Yakub, like those of his predecessors, was distracted by war and sedition. The remains of the Almoravide faction, established in the Balearic Isles, instigated by delusive representations the tribes of the Desert and the malcontents of the Peninsula to insurrection. Their efforts were, however, incapable of seriously endangering the power of Yakub. The leaders were arrested, and the adoption of the most energetic measures soon restored the public tranquillity. The repentant Berbers implored with success the royal clemency; and two of the brothers of the Sultan, involved in the common guilt, were sacrificed to the stern demands of justice and fraternal indignation.

At the head of a splendidly appointed army Yakub then passed into Spain. At his approach, all who had wavered in fidelity or had taken up arms hastened to solicit forgiveness and renew their obligations of fealty. The expedition, which was merely a reconnoissance, penetrated without difficulty as far as Lisbon. The degree of its success may be inferred from the fact that the booty is said to have exceeded in value any heretofore secured by any foreign invader in the Peninsula excepting Musa, and that the captives who followed in the train of the conqueror amounted to the respectable number of thirteen thousand.

The crusading spirit, then at its height in Europe, soon offered the King of Portugal an opportunity for retaliation. A large body of Flemish and English knights and men-at-arms, on their way to the Holy Land, disembarked at Lisbon to avoid, during the winter months, the inconveniences of a protracted voyage and the proverbial dangers of the Spanish coast. These adventurers accepted with avidity the tempting proposals of the Portuguese king. The Moorish territory was invaded by the crusaders, co-operating with a force of native troops; and the cities of Evora, Beja, and Silves became the prey of the most licentious soldiery in Europe. The latter place, which had surrendered under articles of capitulation to Sancho, King of Portugal, was, in violation of the laws of war and of every principle of justice, abandoned to the tender mercies of the foreigners. Out of a population of sixty thousand barely one-fifth escaped with life and liberty. The majority of these were Jews, whose commercial relations with the countries of Western Europe gave them influence with the Christian commanders, while the presence of numbers of their countrymen in the enemy’s camp contributed in no small degree to their security. This immunity was not obtained, however, without the payment of an exorbitant ransom; the city was pillaged amidst indescribable scenes of cruelty, and many of the crusaders, renouncing the pious cause in which they had embarked, remained in Silves as subjects of the King of Portugal.

Fortune did not suffer them long to retain the fruits of their bad faith and rapacity. Orders were issued from Morocco to retrieve the disgrace sustained by the Moslems, and Mohammed, governor of Cordova, having invaded the lost territory, stormed one after another the places which had tempted the avarice of the adventurous foreigners; the horrors of the previous capture were repeated and even surpassed, and the Christians in their turn experienced the bitterness of defeat and the calamities of servitude. Fourteen thousand male captives, chained together, were paraded through the streets of Cordova, and fifteen thousand women, distributed through the Moslem communities of Spain and Africa, attested the fearful retribution exacted by the lieutenant of the Sultan.

Three years after this event, Yakub, who in the midst of extensive projects for the amelioration of his people had never relinquished those plans of conquest which formed so important a feature in the policy of every active Moslem prince, prepared for a grand campaign against the Christians of Castile. The imperial forces, amounting to three hundred thousand men, were transported across the Strait without difficulty, and this mighty armament, for which the resources of the governors of Andalusia were greatly taxed to provide subsistence, began its march into the interior. Yakub, weary of unprofitable forays and of expeditions which inflicted no permanent injury upon the enemy, had resolved to attempt a most perilous and doubtful enterprise. The city of Toledo, whose geographical position, impregnable fortifications, and national prestige as the military centre of the Castilian monarchy made it the most important strategic point in the entire Peninsula, was the main object of his ambition. The political condition of the Christian kingdoms, whose princes, again influenced by mutual hatred, regarded with complacency the distress of their neighbors, was peculiarly favorable to the designs of the Moslems. Portugal and Leon were embroiled with the Holy See. Its interference with the royal prerogatives and its unsolicited participation in the religious disputes of those states were regarded with undisguised disapproval by a people which had never explicitly recognized the jurisdiction of the Supreme Pontiff. The jealousies of power and the hope of profiting by the discord of their rivals kept aloof from each other the kingdoms of Castile, Navarre, and Aragon. It was by the former of these, unaided and alone, that the shock of the impending tempest was to be sustained; while the other monarchies, removed from the seat of war, might await in temporary security the issue of the inevitable conflict. Alfonso VIII., who had aroused the ire and hastened the invasion of Yakub by a challenge couched in all the extravagant terms of Spanish rodomontade, now realized to the full the disastrous effects of his untimely insolence. In vain, in his extremity, he appealed to the piety, the patriotism, the martial spirit of the neighboring Christian princes. The King of Aragon returned no answer. Alarmed by the reports of the immense preparations of Yakub, the King of Navarre had not hesitated to open secret negotiations with him, with a view to preserving his possessions as a vassal of the Moslem. The sole auxiliaries who responded to the entreaties of Alfonso were a handful of French knights, with their retainers, from the districts of Provence and Gascony. With these, with the brethren of the military orders, and with his own forces, whose united number has not been mentioned in the chronicles, but which was greatly inferior to that of the Africans, Alfonso calmly awaited the approach of the enemy below the castle of Alarcos, not far from Calatrava.

At dawn, on one of the most memorable days in the annals of the Reconquest, the hostile armies prepared for battle. The arrangement of the Moslems indicated a degree of military ability scarcely to be expected from the rude tacticians of the age. The Almohades formed the left wing, the right was held by the Andalusians, in the centre were placed the picked troops of the empire, veterans of many campaigns. Behind the first line were ranged the African volunteers, armed principally with missile weapons, whose solid mass was intended to aid the foremost ranks in repelling the charge of the Christian cavalry. The manœuvres were immediately directed by the generals of the Sultan; for Yakub, at the head of his guards and a reserve of several thousand of his bravest troops, remained in ambush within easy access of the field, equally ready at a moment’s notice to retrieve disaster or to burst unexpectedly and with crushing force upon the disordered ranks of a terrified and flying enemy. The position of the Christians had been most advantageously chosen. The gently ascending slope of a mountain, with a steep acclivity at the rear, its sides defended by the deeply worn channels of mountain torrents, was occupied by their camp. With characteristic disregard of prudence the Castilians began the fray. Eight thousand knights in complete armor charged with terrific force the centre of the Moslem line of battle. Twice they recoiled before the solid mass of the enemy, but the third effort was successful; his line was pierced, his ranks were thrown into confusion, and the Christians, elated by a temporary advantage which they thoughtlessly magnified into victory, indulged to the utmost their savage instincts, infuriated as they were by the unexpected resistance they had encountered. But the field was not yet won. As they rushed forward in their bloody course, the impetuous cavaliers were insensibly surrounded by the active Mauritanian cavalry and the archers, who had been drawn up on the flanks of the African army; and, their retreat cut off, they were at once overwhelmed by numbers. In the mean time, the skill and coolness of the Moslem general, Al-Senani, who commanded the broken line, had enabled him to consolidate its wings, not as yet engaged, and, rallying the stragglers, he made a determined attack upon the enemy’s camp. Thus, in different parts of the field two battles were in progress, in which a portion of each army constituted the assailants. Of the knights who had so boldly hurled themselves against the Moslem host, but few escaped the spears and arrows of the Almohades. Despite the strength of the Christian position, it was taken by Al-Senani and his Andalusians, and the picked Castilian troops, unable to withstand the shock of the Moslem charge, were utterly routed. The heavy armor of the chivalry of Alfonso impeded their movements and delayed their flight; their senses were bewildered by the din and tumult of battle, and the fierce Mauritanian horsemen, strangers to pity in the hour of triumph, were deaf to the supplications of a defeated and helpless foe. The manifest exaggerations of the ancient chronicles render it impossible to form even an approximately correct estimate of the Christian loss. It must, however, have been enormous; but the proximity of the mountains, inaccessible to the Moorish cavalry, undoubtedly preserved numbers who would otherwise have perished. Twenty thousand prisoners taken in Alarcos, which fortress was stormed immediately after the battle, were liberated without exchange or ransom, an act of unusual generosity, which, while acquiring for Yakub the unfavorable criticism of his subjects, was considered an evidence of weakness by the ungrateful recipients of his favor, incapable of understanding such indulgence in wars ordinarily waged with indescribable barbarity.

The fruits of this great victory were limited to the possession of a few thousand captives and the plunder of the Castilian camp. At no time had the Christian territory been more vulnerable to the attack of an invader than after the battle of Alarcos. The power of Castile was temporarily destroyed. Navarre, intimidated by the approach of the Moslems, was now ready for the oath of fealty and the humiliating rendition of tribute. Leon was also suspected of entertaining secret negotiations with Yakub, whose influence had not improbably contributed to the inimical relations generally existing between the Christian states of Northern Spain. Aragon, deprived of its sovereign and arrayed against its neighbors, was a prey to political intrigue as well as exposed to the danger of foreign conquest. Portugal alone, protected in a measure by her remoteness from the seat of war, resolutely upheld by her uncompromising attitude the sinking fortunes of the Christian arms.

Many causes conspired to render the campaigns of the Moslems indecisive. Their armies, composed of many nations and commanded by numerous generals, were incapable of thorough organization and discipline. The powers of high officials claiming equal authority, undefined by law and unconfirmed by precedent, were subject to constant and vexatious interference. Prolonged operations were viewed with disfavor by soldiers accustomed to the independent movements and rapidly shifting scenes of partisan warfare. A victory was, to the morale of such a force, almost as detrimental as a defeat. The ordinarily powerful incentives to conquest--the propagation of the Faith, the hope of martial renown, the prospect of territorial acquisition--were forgotten in the desire to enjoy without delay the fruits of activity and courage. Wholesale desertions were the inevitable consequences of success. Military expeditions in the Peninsula were not, since it had become a dependency of Africa, carried on with the systematic regularity which aimed at permanent occupancy. Towns were usually pillaged and burnt. The country was desolated, the population enslaved. But it was rare that a garrison was placed in a captured city, and new fortresses were no longer erected to guard the security of the frontier. The frontier, indeed, had become the uncertain boundary of a debatable land, a region which the constant incursions of enemies had transformed into a waste, whose limits, ever shifting, were yet steadily encroaching on the Moslem domain. The fortunes of a mere province, however valuable and extensive it might be, could excite but a languid and transitory interest amidst the plots and revolutions of a distant and turbulent capital. After a foray into Castile directed by Christian refugees and renegades with real or fictitious grievances to avenge, the Moslems retired from the campaign, and the opportunity afforded by the battle of Alarcos was irretrievably lost. The next spring was passed in unprofitable excursions into Castile and Estremadura. Calatrava and Guadalajara were taken, and Salamanca was stormed and burnt to the ground after having submitted to the utmost excesses of a barbarian enemy. The absence of organized resistance, the general consternation which prevailed in every Christian community, the craven behavior of great princes, who solicited with abject humility the protection of the Almohade Sultan; the extraordinary facility with which one fortress after another was occupied by the Moslems, indicate the universal demoralization consequent upon the rout of Alarcos. A campaign conducted with energy and determination must have resulted in the complete overthrow of the Christian monarchies of the North. But Yakub, destitute of the most eminent qualifications of a commander, wasted his time and consumed the strength of his soldiers in predatory enterprises which yielded neither military distinction nor political advantage, while his enemies expected in constant terror the appearance of the squadrons which had annihilated the knights of the monastic orders, the pride of Christian Spain, and had trampled under foot the Castilian chivalry, already illustrious for endurance and prowess among the famous warriors of Europe. An attempt, indeed, was made upon Toledo, the original object of the invasion, behind whose walls the fugitives of Alarcos had taken refuge; but the old Visigothic capital, which had issued victorious from a hundred sieges, was not to be hastily reduced by an enemy ignorant as yet of the destructive force of gunpowder. A few days demonstrated the futility of an attack where the deficiencies of military engineering could not be compensated by superiority in numbers, and the King of Castile was fortunate enough to negotiate a truce with the Sultan, now alarmed by reports of sedition in his own dominions. The return of the latter preceded only a short time his sudden and unexpected death. He was a prince who, of all the descendants of African dynasties, was most worthy of the honors of imperial greatness, and it was not without propriety that he assumed the title of Al-Mansur, The Victorious. Under his reign his countrymen probably attained to the highest degree of civilization and intellectual development of which their race is capable. Experience had repeatedly proven that the innate savagery of the Berber was incorrigible. The benefits of education, habitual association with the learned and the polite, familiarity with the finest literary productions of preceding ages, the daily presence of architectural monuments of unrivalled splendor, were unable to efface the barbarous instincts inherited through unnumbered generations of roving banditti. Like the Arab, a freebooter by birth and inclination, the Berber abandoned with reluctance and resumed with delight the unsettled and precarious existence of his forefathers. No political affinity existed between the various divisions of the African race. Of such components an enduring empire could not be constructed. When temporarily united, they were held together solely by the unnatural and artificial influences of force and fear; the principles of mutual co-operation, of national pride, of devoted loyalty, which constitute at once the security and the glory of a nation, were absent. The first three princes of the Almohade line were pre-eminently conspicuous for their talents, their firmness, their political sagacity. Their reigns, while characterized by more or less severity, the consequence of peculiar political conditions, were neither oppressive nor unjust. No restrictions were laid on commerce. The burdens of taxation were lightened and illegal impositions abolished. Many internal improvements were planned and perfected. The administration of justice was purified and corrupt magistrates punished. The religious sentiment, dominant in the minds of an ignorant people, was gratified by the erection of sumptuous temples. The prosecution of extensive military operations, the enslavement of entire tribes, the sack of opulent cities, the achievement of sweeping victories, the extermination of armies, were calculated to secure the attachment and confirm the allegiance of a people passionately devoted to the stirring excitements of war. But so capricious and disloyal was the African, that neither the enjoyment of present favor nor the expectation of future benefit could insure his fidelity. He was wholly careless of the advantages of civilization. His superstition made him the facile dupe of every impostor. The Almohade sovereigns lived in constant apprehension of dethronement. If they left Africa for Spain, the desert tribes were certain to rebel. As soon as they had recrossed the Strait, Andalusia rose in arms. The death of an ignorant charlatan, who in a short time had restricted the empire of Abd-al-Mumen to two cities, alone saved that monarch and his dynasty from destruction. The annals of his son and grandson are a bloody chronicle of insurrections, massacres, executions. The Berber element, while abhorred by the Arabs, had yet so permeated the society of the Peninsula that every department of government, every rank and profession of men, had been infected with its poison. Under such conditions political regeneration was impossible. No reformer, no conqueror, could avert the final catastrophe,--a catastrophe inevitable in the decadence of nations,--subjection to a foreign enemy actuated by religious fanaticism, military ambition, and inflexibility of purpose. The victory of Alarcos was the closing triumph of Islam in the Peninsula, and with the reign of Yakub disappeared the last opportunity for the restoration of Moslem power.

It is not, however, by his conquests, the extent of his dominions, or the splendor of his court that Yakub-al-Mansur is best known to us. The Giralda, or minaret, which towered over the mosque of Seville, and now, for the most part intact, is the principal ornament of its cathedral, is the greatest monument to his fame. The stately temple to which it was attached, founded by Yusuf, and almost a quarter of a century in building, was at last finished by his son. The spoils of many a foray, the wealth of many a conquered city, the plunder of many a Christian sanctuary, were devoted to its construction. Gold and silver obtained from the sacramental vessels of violated altars glittered upon its walls. Its masonry had been laid by the painful labor of hundreds of captives. Its foundations stand upon a base composed of busts, statues, bas-reliefs, and carvings taken from the Roman structures abounding in the vicinity, and many of which represented the finest efforts of classic taste and imperial magnificence. To strict observers of Moslem law,--and none adhered more closely to the letter of its provisions than the Almohades,--every representation of the human form was classed as idolatrous, and the effigies of the emperors, statesmen, and orators of antiquity were buried far beneath the walls of the Giralda, that the eyes of the Faithful might no longer be offended by what were ignorantly presumed to be objects of Pagan adoration; and that the spiritual as well as the material supremacy of Islam might be symbolized by the erection over these infidel memorials of the most imposing and beautiful edifice of its kind that has ever been devised by the genius of man.

Its base is a square of fifty feet; its original height was three hundred. For eighty-seven feet from the foundation the walls are of stone blocks fitted with the greatest nicety, and once polished to the smoothness of glass. The superstructure is of brick, and almost covered with graceful arabesque patterns in terra-cotta. Each side is divided into six panels with the designs in bas-relief, the panels resting upon ogival arches sustained by marble columns sunk into the masonry. In the central panels are a series of ajimezes, or Moorish windows, whose compartments are separated by miniature columns of alabaster. A charming variety and elegance exist in their arrangement and decoration; the openings are symmetrical but unequally disposed, and the terra-cotta patterns, while they exhibit a general similarity, are unlike in detail, no two faces of the tower exactly resembling each other. The minaret as originally designed was crowned with battlements, and was surmounted by another tower eight cubits in height, of similar plan but of much more elaborate ornamentation. Above the latter structure rose a bar sustaining four bronze balls of different sizes, placed one above the other. The general color of the building was a brilliant red, due to the bricks of which it was principally composed. Within this bright setting the sunken arabesques glowed with all the splendor of the richest damask. The interstitial portions of the designs were painted with scarlet, azure, green, and purple, the parts in relief were gilded. The maze of gold and color was at once tempered and defined by the duller framing and by the white, translucent, alabaster columns of the central panels. Around the summit of the principal tower was a mosaic of intricate pattern and many colors. The beauty of the gorgeous tints that under the sunlight of Southern Spain exhibited the refulgence of the rainbow was heightened by the use of tiles covered with gold leaf, whose enamelled covering imparted a brilliancy not even exceeded by the burnished metal itself. Upon the superstructure had been lavished all the exquisite taste and skill of the Moorish and the Byzantine artisan. Its sides presented a complicated and elegant mosaic of white, blue, and gold. Its parapet blazed with that precious metal, and above ascended, in regular gradation, the row of immense gilded globes, visible to the approaching or to the departing caravan for the space of more than a day’s journey. The largest of these was nearly twenty feet in diameter; the surfaces of all were deeply grooved, the better to reflect the light; and the iron bar which sustained them, and which was also plated with gold, weighed nearly a thousand pounds.

The interior of the famous minaret presents some extraordinary, not to say unique, architectural features. Its walls are nine feet in thickness at the base, and, instead of decreasing in dimensions, become still more solid as they rise, until the capacity of the structure near the summit is but little more than half what it is at the bottom. The ascent is made by thirty-five ramps, or inclined planes, resting upon vaults and arches, and supported by a shaft of masonry built in the centre of the tower.

It was to the architects of Constantinople that the Moors were indebted for this excellent substitute for the stairway, by which the loftiest buildings could be ascended with comparatively slight fatigue. Byzantine influence, which has left such an impress upon the architecture of Venice, has provided its towers with this ingenious device, of which the Campanile offers a familiar example. Instances of its employment also exist in many cities of Africa, some of whose mosques, constructed by the Almohades, present, upon a greatly reduced scale, minarets in form and decoration almost counterparts of the Giralda as it was in the day of its original splendor. It is not uninteresting to note that the architect who superintended the completion of the Giralda was Abu-Layth, a Sicilian, whose country, long a province of Constantinople, had never, even under Moslem domination, completely abandoned the traditions or renounced the influence of the Christian capital of the East.

Mohammed-Ibn-Yakub, whose hereditary title had been confirmed by the exercise of regal authority during the lifetime of his father, succeeded to the perilous honors of the Almohade throne. A prince of amiable character but mediocre talents, without ambition and destitute of self-reliance, his accession augured ill for the maintenance of order among a score of jealous nations, which all the genius of great statesmen and warriors had hardly sufficed to restrain within the bounds of loyalty and discipline. The death of Yakub was the signal for revolt to the turbulent spirits who inhabited the mountains of Fez, and their defection was immediately followed by a formidable insurrection in the Balearic Isles. There, where Almoravide influence was nourished by descendants of that family,--who, expelled from the main-land, had for a time enjoyed in that sequestered region a nominal independence,--the standard of rebellion was raised by Yahya, an active partisan, who traced his descent from the last Almoravide emperor, Yusuf-Ibn-Tashfin. The sedition of the mountain tribes was easily suppressed, but that of the Balearic Isles was far more serious, and demanded the adoption of the most stringent measures. The name of the Almoravides had by no means lost its potency in Africa. Among the inhabitants of the coast and the denizens of the Sahara, the exploits of the dynasty that had first consolidated the vagrant tribes of that continent into the semblance of a nation, had brought to their knowledge the benefits of letters and the arts, and had, by its conquests, raised them to the height of military glory, were still remembered. The sympathies of the people of the Balearic Isles were almost unanimously with the representatives of their ancient masters. Before such an event could be anticipated, an army landed on the coast of Africa. The Berbers, allured by novelty and by the prospect of license, began to show signs of discontent. The political agitation enveloped the northern portion of the Desert, and the following of the intrepid Yahya was increased by the enrolment of many warlike tribes. One element, however, and a most important one, was lacking to insure success. The enterprise of the Almoravides was a purely political one. In every revolution which had previously aroused the enthusiasm and enlisted the support of the Africans, religion was the alleged incentive and the most prominent feature. A certain degree of mystery, a plausible exhibition of imposture, were indispensable to the excitement and the control of the credulous and fanatical wanderers of the Sahara. No movement could prosper in that benighted region unless presided over by the sombre genius of superstition.

The first operations of Yahya were highly successful. Several fortresses along the coast opened their gates to the invader. The city of Almahadia was carried by storm. Kairoan, once the seat of the Fatimite khalifs, and still the centre of an extensive trade between the Desert and the Mediterranean, was threatened. The discernment of Mohammed convinced him that the occupation of this ancient capital would impart a dangerous impetus to the rebel cause, a contingency which must, at all hazards, be prevented. The young prince acted with extraordinary decision. The forces of Yahya were beaten. Some fortresses were retaken, others voluntarily submitted. The insurgent leader, hotly pursued by the enemy, was unable to re-embark, and was driven to implore the hospitality of his Berber allies in the heart of the Desert. A great force besieged Almahadia, which was bravely defended by the Almoravide governor, Al-Hadshi. But the courage and determination of the garrison could not prevail against the science of the Sicilian and Spanish engineers who served in the army of the Sultan. The walls were undermined. The towers were crushed by immense projectiles of iron and stone hurled against them from engines of novel construction and prodigious size. To avert the calamities of an assault, the city was surrendered. With a generosity without precedent in the annals of mediæval warfare, a general amnesty was proclaimed. The garrison was persuaded to enlist under the banners of the conqueror, and Mohammed, charmed with the gallantry of Al-Hadshi, received him into his confidence and conferred upon him an important command in his army.

The Balearic Isles, captured in 1115 by Raymond Berenger III., Count of Barcelona, and afterwards occupied by the surviving leaders of the Almoravide party, now for the first time in their history experienced the effects of Berber invasion. Majorca was devastated by the Mauritanian cavalry, its cities were burnt, and its population enslaved. Minorca and Ivica, profiting by this example, hastened to solicit the clemency of their sovereign, and the heads of the Almoravide chieftains, carefully embalmed with camphor and enclosed in an elegant casket, were sent to Morocco as conclusive evidence that nothing more was to be feared from a crushed and disorganized faction.

The propitious beginning of a reign fated to end in ruin and disgrace encouraged the youthful Sultan to undertake enterprises of far greater importance. The truce unwisely conceded by Yakub to the entreaties of the King of Castile had not yet expired. But the deliberate violation of a treaty contracted with an infidel was considered an offence scarcely worthy of absolution by the Christian casuists of that age. Present expediency alone regulated the observation of public engagements. The prince, who, to his own disadvantage, honorably fulfilled the terms of a contract with a Moslem, would have been rewarded with the derision of his subjects and the anathemas of the clergy. Long anterior to the time of Mendoza and Ximenes, who made the broadest application of that infamous principle, its adoption had been approved by both the civil and ecclesiastical powers of Christian Spain, and faith was kept with an unbeliever or a heretic only so long as it suited the convenience of the other contracting party.

The death of Yakub had in a measure revived the spirits of the disheartened Christians. Alfonso had succeeded with much difficulty in collecting the scattered fragments of his defeated army. The military orders, which had left their bravest members on the field of Alarcos, began to fill the vacancies in their decimated ranks. In the larger cities the impatient youth again longed for the excitements and the plunder of the foray. Importuned by the solicitations of his subjects, and fortified by the opinions and assurances of the clergy, Alfonso violated the truce and descended unexpectedly upon the plains of Baeza and Jaen. His success encouraged the organization of other expeditions, and the bloody scenes of former years were re-enacted, until no portion of Andalusia was secure from the ravages of the enterprising Christian partisan. The subjection of the Almoravide rebels had inspired Mohammed with a thirst for conquest, and with a desire to punish the perfidy and the boldness of an adversary who, but a few years before, had in abject and humiliating terms sued for peace. The proclamation of the Holy War was issued. The Berber chieftains and their followers responded with enthusiasm. With all the naval facilities of the empire at their command, nearly two months were required by the immense body of troops--more than three hundred thousand in number--for transportation across the Strait; and, assembled at Seville, their tents and bivouacs dotted the landscape for leagues around that city.

It was with the greatest consternation that tidings of the impending invasion were received by the Christians. From the presence of the African had dated not only the political misfortunes of the Peninsula, but the most serious disasters ever experienced by the Spanish arms. Thrice already in its history the landing of a Mussulman host had been the precursor of a national catastrophe. Sixteen years had passed since the fatal day of Alarcos, but the memory of that appalling defeat was still fresh in the memory of almost every family in Castile; and so destructive and wide-spread had been its effects that the resources of that kingdom, which had sustained the brunt of the attack, had never been completely restored. In the present emergency the Holy See was appealed to; the war against the Moslems was invested with the character and privileges of a crusade, and the anathemas of the Church were denounced against all who should impede the movements or assist the enemies of the King of Castile, now the champion of Christendom. Emissaries furnished with the letters of the Supreme Pontiff went forth from the Vatican to rouse the flagging religious spirit of Europe. While the entire country north of the Tagus was in a state of terror, and few preparations had been made for resistance, the army of the Sultan, organized in five grand divisions, broke camp at Seville. Remembering the issue of similar undertakings, the Christian population were stricken with the apathy of despair. Everything was favorable to the plans of Mohammed, and had he improved his opportunity the Moslem domination might have been re-established throughout the Peninsula. In the path of the invading force rose the castle of Salvatierra, a fortress of such insignificance that even its ruins cannot now be identified; but the conceit of the Sultan was so great that he was unwilling to leave behind him a single Christian stronghold, and the siege of an obscure frontier outpost, on whose endurance, however, now depended the destinies of Spain, was formed. In the indulgence of this foolish whim eight precious months passed away, while the severities of the season and the pangs of famine fast depleted the ranks of the Moorish army. The capture of Salvatierra was finally accomplished, at the greatest cost probably ever incurred in the conquest of a place of so little importance, and the Moslems retired to their quarters in Andalusia. Encouraged by this unexpected check of the enemy, the Christians, while realizing that the danger was only postponed, began to exhibit unwonted activity. Amidst the snows of winter, the warriors of Spain, about to make an expiring and desperate effort for the defence of their homes and the salvation of their country; crusading fanatics, animated by the fury of religious zeal, and representing almost every nationality of Europe; ferocious soldiers of fortune, whose swords still dripped with the blood of the Albigensian heretics; eminent prelates, who discharged with equal dexterity the duties of the confessional and the office of command, assembled at Toledo, once the civil and ecclesiastical centre of the Visigothic power, now the capital of a growing monarchy predestined for many coming centuries to abject subserviency to the See of Rome.

The influence of the Papacy, no less than the imminent peril of the state, had successfully appealed to the religious instincts and national honor of every Christian potentate in the Peninsula. Many of these came in person, followed by the nobles and ecclesiastical dignitaries of their dominions. In this strange array, which could so easily reconcile the din of battle with the peaceful services of the altar and the pilgrimage, and which substituted without hesitation for the monotonous intonations of the mass the martial notes of the trumpet, were numbered the principal officials of the Church, headed by the celebrated Roderick, Primate of the Kingdoms of Spain. The grand-masters of all the military orders, including those of the Hospitallers and the Templars, who with a considerable following had come from distant countries to share in the honor and the glory of a new crusade, formed no unimportant accession to the ranks of the Christian army. Every organization in the land--civil, political, military, and religious--had despatched its representatives to the appointed rendezvous, full of patriotic confidence, yet with a thorough realization of the fatal consequences to their liberties and their faith which must inevitably result from another great Moslem victory obtained over a people which had already well-nigh lost its recuperative power. A remarkable concourse was that whose various dialects and often discordant accents were heard in the streets, and whose daily increasing numbers, exceeding the capacity of the old Visigothic capital to contain, were distributed through the pastures and gardens of its environs. An abundance of provisions supplied by the timely foresight of Alfonso kept the motley host content, but want of occupation soon developed the prevalent vices of the camp. Quarrels, provoked by the claims of different nationalities to superiority, were not unusual, and the narrow thoroughfares of the ordinarily sedate and tranquil city became nightly the scene of brawls and disorder. Among the crusaders were many who had served in Palestine and were accustomed to unrestrained indulgence in every variety of crime. To these adventurers, whose religious fervor was largely stimulated by avarice, the wealth of the numerous and thriving Hebrew population of Toledo was a prize too valuable to be overlooked. The prejudices of the age were favorable to persecution, and the Jew, especially if prosperous, was to the ignorant zealot the worst of infidels. A plan was formed for the massacre of the entire Jewish colony; and it required all the influence of the clergy and all the authority of Alfonso to prevent the destruction of a large portion of his most industrious and useful subjects in the very heart of his capital.

Finally, in June, 1212, the crusading army prepared for the active operations of a campaign. In its order of arrangement, the advance guard was composed of the foreigners, the centre was allotted to the Aragonese, and the rear was closed by the soldiers of the remaining states and kingdoms, who had most at stake and on whose efforts the issue of a battle must principally depend.

The crusaders had advanced but a few days’ march beyond Toledo, when signs of insubordination began to appear among the French and Italians. There is probably not in all Europe a region so inhospitable and so desolate during any season as the plateaus of Central Spain. No tree rises to relieve the dull monotony of the landscape. In winter the plain is swept by icy blasts from the sierras. In summer the exhausted traveller is prostrated by the fierce rays of an almost tropical sun. That country even now, for scores of leagues in every direction, presents the aspect of a desert; and in the thirteenth century, marking the boundary between two nations involved in continuous hostility, was yet more dreary and uninhabited than it is to-day. To the old crusader it recalled only too forcibly the hardships and the perils of the Holy Land, privations long since gladly exchanged for a life of luxury and license in the service of generous and indulgent European princes. The prelate sighed for the cloister, reluctantly abandoned for the camp at the command of the Holy Father, and longed to return to the scenes of wassail,--to the gay hunting parties in the forest; to the festive board, with its convivial and unclerical guests, its appetizing dishes, and sparkling wines; to the embraces of those beautiful companions who, chosen for their rare fascinations, whiled away, behind the walls of palace and monastery, the leisure of the epicurean bishop with Oriental dances and with the lively notes of lute and castanet. To men who had been induced to take up the cross by glowing descriptions of the Moorish cities of Andalusia, the experiences of a march through La Mancha were a grievous disappointment. So universal and serious was the discouragement among the foreigners, that the indignant remonstrances of the King and the prelates were scarcely sufficient to prevent their desertion in a body. At length, after a few insignificant frontier castles had been stormed and little booty obtained, the Italians and French, instigated by the ecclesiastics, abandoned their allies and marched homeward. Their freebooting instincts were disclosed by an ineffectual attempt to surprise Toledo, whose wealth they had never ceased to covet; but the inhabitants refused them admission to the city, and they were compelled to return to their homes empty handed, covered with infamy and objects of derision and contempt to the devout of every Christian nation of Europe.

The passes of the Sierra Morena had been already occupied by the Moors when the Christian army approached that range of mountains which forms the northern boundary of the province of Andalusia. A shepherd, whom superstition has exalted into a saint, and whose familiarity with the depths of the Sierra is still represented as miraculous, was found, who guided the army through secret paths by the outposts of the enemy. On the lofty plains of Tolosa the two armies met to decide the fate of the Peninsula. The Moslems had slightly the advantage of situation and decidedly the superiority in numbers. In the centre of the Moorish camp, on a gentle elevation, was pitched the scarlet, silken tent of the Sultan, which, with its gold embroidery and fluttering pennons, was the most conspicuous object in the field. This position was protected by the baggage-wagons, which, united by a ponderous iron chain, encircled its base. In front of the hill, and defended by a ditch, was drawn up the Moslem infantry, whose want of steadiness and defective discipline the ingenuity of their officers had attempted to correct by the dangerous expedient of fastening the ranks together with ropes. The mailed soldiers were placed in the centre, and the swift and irregular Mauritanians on the flanks of the foremost line. A guard of black slaves covered the summit of the hill where sat the monarch, clad in a black and threadbare robe, revered as the sacred garment worn by the founder of his sect, with the Moslem symbols of conquest, the Koran and the scimetar, beside him. The Moorish order of battle did not differ greatly from that of Alarcos, and the experience of that day no doubt determined the adoption of an arrangement which had once been crowned with such brilliant success. Apparently the circumstances were more propitious to the invaders than those of the former contest. Their numbers were greater than those of the army of Yakub, the forces of the enemy probably nearly the same as before. Their position was much stronger and defended with more military skill. The sovereign was present to encourage the efforts and animate the zeal of his innumerable soldiery. The memory of two great victories--one so recent as to be still fresh in the minds of many in both armies, and each of which had imparted such glory to the Moslem cause--incited the soldiers of Mohammed to emulate the heroic exploits of Zallaca and Alarcos.

On the other hand, it was with feelings of sullen desperation that the Christians armed themselves at midnight for the decisive conflict of the morrow. They were not oblivious of the national and religious interests dependent on their constancy and their valor. Their allies, on whose support they had reckoned, had perfidiously deserted them. Their resources were exhausted. Unjustly, as the event demonstrated, yet not without foundation, suspicions of the fidelity of some in their ranks whose dispositions had once been hostile, and who had privately negotiated with the enemy, were entertained. The disastrous results of former contests, the present disadvantages of inferior numbers and position, even the most fervent exhortations of ecclesiastical zeal, were inadequate to remove or counteract. By the weird light of fires and torches the sacrament was administered to the Christian warriors, admonished by the activity of their enemies, whose sounds of preparation could be faintly heard from their distant camp. The officers received their final orders, and the troops were disposed in the array of battle. The right wing was commanded by Sancho, King of Navarre; the centre by Alfonso; the left wing by Pedro, King of Aragon.

The attack was begun by the Castilians, who with headstrong impetuosity rushed forward to storm the enemy’s intrenchments. They were received, however, with a courage worthy of their own, and their formation was shaken by the solidity of the Moslem ranks. Both armies soon became engaged; the Spanish mountaineers, inexperienced in warfare and sickened by the frightful carnage, took to flight; and the nobility were left, with momentarily diminishing numbers, to contend with the myriads of barbarians who threatened to overwhelm them. It was then that Alfonso, with his guards, plunging into the serried masses of the enemy, retrieved the failing fortunes of the day. The supplications and the threats of divine vengeance uttered by the ecclesiastics, who, attired in their sacred vestments and holding aloft the crucifix, intercepted the retreat of the mountaineers, caused them to rejoin their devoted comrades, whose valor awakened their admiration while it magnified their cowardice. The battle now raged with fury along the entire line. The Berbers, without reflection on the consequences, exposed their half-naked bodies to the swords of the Christian knights, whose armor received without impression the strokes of the missile weapons of the Desert. The slaughter of these wretched fanatics was appalling; but the places of those who fell were instantly supplied by others, who sought at the hands of the infidel the martyr’s death, which is a certain passport to the Moslem paradise. In the very crisis of the struggle, while victory was hanging in the balance, the day was lost by a flagrant act of treachery. The hajib of Mohammed, Saad-Ibn-Djiami, who exercised despotic influence over the feeble spirit of that monarch, had alienated the Andalusians by tyranny. The governors of the frontier castles taken by the crusaders had been treated with the greatest indignity by that official, and one, whose intrepidity had exacted even the admiration of an unfeeling foe, he had caused to be put to death by torture. The remonstrances of the Arabs of Andalusia were received with insult; they were declared inferior in rank and courage to the Almohades, and the hajib publicly announced that they would hereafter be assigned to the least honorable position on the march and in the face of danger. The double imputation of plebeian extraction and cowardice, a reproach as false as it was unwise, was deeply resented by the Andalusians, many of whose families traced their lineage beyond the era of the Prophet; their courage had been tested for centuries in the wars of the Peninsula, and it was they who had stormed the Christian camp at Alarcos and contributed far more than the Africans to the completeness of that splendid victory. Exasperated by the unjust treatment of the hajib, and not without reason apprehensive of the power such a tyrant would enjoy if successful, they resolved to sacrifice country, religion, independence, and honor to the vindication of their offended national dignity. At a signal from their commander they marched away from the field. The sudden withdrawal of a body of sixty thousand men produced a panic; the Moslem lines were shattered, and the terrified fugitives, entangled in the ropes to which the infantry had been attached, were thrown into hopeless confusion, and remained at the mercy of the Castilian cavalry. The efforts of the Christians were now directed towards the summit of the eminence crowned with the scarlet pavilion of the Sultan. For a brief period the squadrons of the Almohades held their ground, but the weight of the armored horsemen eventually proved too great for the lighter Africans; Sancho, at the head of the Navarrese, broke the chain which encircled the Moslem entrenchment, and the victory of Las Navas de Tolosa, forever afterwards famed in song and story, was lost and won. Mohammed, who, with the apathy of a fatalist, from his commanding position had viewed the rout of his army, fled with only four thousand followers. The butchery which ensued exceeded belief, and the most conservative estimate of the killed was a hundred thousand. Orders had been issued, in accordance with the merciless barbarity of the time, that whoever, for any cause, spared the life of a Moslem should himself be punished with death; and the naturally cruel instincts of the Spanish soldiery, exasperated by the remembrance of past reverses and by the losses resulting from a desperate resistance, scarcely required the incentive of fear to suppress the sentiments of humanity. From dawn to twilight the conflict had continued, four hours of that time being consumed in the pursuit and massacre. In the bloody field, surrounded by the evidences of their valor, the Christians were assembled, and a Te Deum was chanted by the prelates, who returned thanks to God for their unexpected deliverance. The greater part of the spoil was abandoned to his princely associates by Alfonso, whose pride was content with the glory of success; and well it might be, for Castile, hitherto an insignificant principality, was now destined to the enjoyment of more than imperial authority. The value of the horses and camels, magnificent robes, costly weapons, and gold and silver utensils was inestimable. For two days the Christian fires were lighted with the arrows and lances of the enemy, and even then the supply was far from exhausted. A portion of the massive chain which encircled the Sultan’s tent was carried to Pampeluna, where, as a votive offering, it is still suspended before the high altar of the Cathedral; and its emblem, “or, on a field gules,” was long conspicuous in the blazonry of the royal escutcheons of Spain, France, and Navarre.