Chapter XIX: The Progress of the Christian Arms (3)

In the mean time Ferdinand had subjected to the crown of Castile the remaining Moorish cities of Andalusia, and his occupation of Murcia seemed to indicate an intention to encroach upon those provinces of the East which the King of Aragon, in the formation of great plans of conquest, already regarded as his own. The latter learned with apprehension of the progress and the increasing reputation of his enterprising and successful contemporary. Like the aspiring young Greek general, the trophies of his rival would not suffer him to sleep. The prospect of additional power and glory to be acquired by a monarch whose exploits had already eclipsed the distinction in arms he himself enjoyed and had won the applause of Christendom, was not flattering to his vanity and ambition. He collected an imposing army, and bound himself by a solemn oath never to slacken his efforts until Xativa should be taken. Once more the siege of the Moorish stronghold was begun. The defence was conducted with signal ability and courage; but the garrison, well aware that no hope of assistance could be entertained, was induced to propose terms of accommodation before the city was reduced to extremity. Such was the impregnable character of the place that remarkably favorable conditions were obtained by the besieged. The nature of these conditions may well excite surprise. The Christians seem to have gained nothing in reality but a nominal occupation of those quarters of the town which, in case of renewed hostilities, were not susceptible of effective defence. The great citadel, which dominated not only Xativa but also the surrounding country, remained in possession of the Moors. At the expiration of two years it was to be evacuated, and two other castles were to be given in exchange for its peaceable transfer to the Aragonese. The Moslems were guaranteed protection of person and property as well as permitted the practice of their religion and the operation of their laws. Such equitable treatment of an infidel foe had been long unknown to the savage code of the princes who directed the Reconquest. Never since the Christian power attained to prominence had concessions equally generous been granted to the vanquished Saracen. It would appear, however, that this leniency was really only a pretext to gain by treachery what was unattainable by force. For a time the treaty was respected. The murmurs of the soldiery, defrauded of their expected prey, were silenced by ample donatives from the royal treasury. The inhabitants, deluded by a show of impartiality and moderation, pursued in peace their ordinary employments. But this condition was only temporary. The grasping ambition of Jaime was not to be satisfied with the mere shadow of possession and authority. Considerations of moral obligation were unceremoniously swept aside by the royal casuist the moment they conflicted with the imperious demands of political necessity. Excuses were invented and opportunities found to accuse the Moors of infraction of the treaty. The enmity of the conquerors was, in accordance with the baser and more mercenary instincts of humanity, first directed against the rich. Opulent merchants were condemned, without accusation or trial, to exile and beggary. Their property, the chief cause of their persecution, was confiscated by the crown or divided among the clergy and the nobles, who received with complacent gratification the rewards of national perfidy and dishonor. Possession of the citadel was secured by stratagem; the castles for which it was to have been exchanged were retained by the Christians, and numbers of Moorish maidens became, in spite of the faith of conventions and in defiance of the canons of the Church, unwilling ministers of the pleasures of the orthodox but voluptuous conqueror. The melancholy end of the governor of Xativa, Yahya-Ibn-Ahmed, will arouse the compassion of every reader who sympathizes with the misfortunes which ill-directed resolution and bravery are liable to encounter in every age. He was a personage of the highest consideration among his countrymen. His talents and his integrity had elevated him to the first position in the state. His wealth enabled him to sustain with dignity the civil and military honors conferred upon him by an appreciative and admiring people. In the defence of the city he had more than justified the exalted opinion universally entertained of his capacity. The treaty he negotiated with an enemy of vastly superior resources and elated by recent conquests was the most advantageous to the weaker party of any recorded in the annals of the Peninsula. He scrupulously observed every condition of that agreement which his adversaries repudiated at their convenience without shame and without excuse. With the other wealthy citizens of Xativa he was driven from his home; his estates were appropriated by the rapacious foreigner; he was forced to subsist by the charity of strangers in a land where he had formerly displayed the ensigns and exercised the prerogatives of royalty; and, while his fate remains in doubt, his death was popularly believed to have been hastened by poison or starvation.

The subjection of Xativa by the King of Aragon caused a rupture between the two greatest soldiers of Western Europe which, had it developed into open hostility, would have seriously imperilled the cause of Christianity in the Peninsula. It was not without reason that Jaime had apprehended the dangerous effects of Castilian ambition. The tendency of conquest must hereafter inevitably be to the eastward. Andalusia, forever lost to the Moslem, was now an integral part of the dominions of Ferdinand. It was well known that the aspirations of that conqueror had not been satisfied by the acquisition of the most valuable portion of the Saracen empire. His intention to dispute the doubtful claim of Aragon to the coveted region lying east of Granada had already been disclosed by his occupation of Murcia. It was not merely by arms that the astute King of Castile endeavored to extend, at the expense of his rival, his already formidable power. The political interests of the two monarchs had recently been nominally united by the marriage of Alfonso, the heir to the Castilian throne, and Yolande, the daughter of Jaime. Instigated by his father, that prince endeavored to induce the Moslem governor to surrender to him the city of Xativa, in contravention of the treaty negotiated with the King of Aragon. This scheme was frustrated by the vigilance of Jaime, and the expulsion of the principal citizens, some of whom were suspected of complicity in the designs of Ferdinand, was determined upon in consequence of the discovery.

Foiled in this attempt, Ferdinand then demanded the place as the dowry of his daughter-in-law. But the King of Aragon, whose pride was not inferior to that of Ferdinand, was unwilling to relinquish to the importunity of a rival the substantial fruits of his courage and energy, and it required all the address and the blandishments of his queen to reconcile the conflicting pretensions of her husband and her kinsman. The ancient boundary of Murcia and Valencia was eventually re-established as the frontier of the two Christian monarchies. The designs of Jaime were hereafter prosecuted to a successful termination without hinderance from the intriguing policy of Castile, and in a few years all the other fortresses held by the Moslems in the East of the Peninsula were incorporated, either by conquest or negotiation, into the realms of the kingdom of Aragon. The remaining years of Jaime were passed amidst the distracting turmoil of family disputes and feudal encroachments. An ill-advised expedition to the Holy Land, in which the crusading fleet was dispersed by a tempest and which ended ignominiously, for a time engaged his attention. On the seventh of July, 1276, he died at Valencia, the scene of his greatest triumph.

This famous king was one of the most extraordinary personages of mediæval history. The romance which colored his entire career antedated his very existence. The son of Pedro II. and Marie, Countess of Montpellier, whose marriage had never before been consummated and was immediately afterwards practically annulled, he owed his origin to an artifice, not infrequently met with in the merry tales of the Middle Ages, but in this instance exhibiting a singular mixture of the humorous and the pathetic. Even his name he owed to chance. His mother lighted twelve candles, to represent the twelve apostles, and that of St. James having burned longer than the others, her son was christened for that worthy as his patron saint. While yet a little child, he was intrusted to Simon de Montfort, crusader, soldier of fortune, and persecutor of the Albigenses, to be educated. That freebooter, the most eminent in his infamous calling of any of the military outlaws of his time and who subsequently defeated and killed the father of his charge on the field of Muret, caused the boy to be betrothed to his own daughter before he had attained the age of four years. It afterwards required all the influence of the Pope, moved by the entreaties of the Spanish clergy, to rescue the royal infant from the hands of Simon and place him upon the throne of Aragon.

Held in the arms of the Bishop of Tarragona, he repeated mechanically and without comprehension the customary oath to maintain and execute the laws of the realm. From the very beginning his abilities, child as he was, were exercised with tact and discretion in the treatment of his uncles, who attempted to govern in his name, and of the nobles, who obstinately disputed his authority. It was not long before his genius asserted itself and commanded the respect and obedience of his unruly vassals. Personal advantages, which have so much influence with the majority of mankind, bore no small share in effecting this result. Nature had lavished upon him her most precious gifts. His stature greatly exceeded that of other men. His features were handsome; his form exhibited the proportions and the muscles of a Roman gladiator. His manners were singularly winning; his demeanor conspicuous for its graces among a people renowned for their courtesy. While fearless in the presence of danger, such was his compassion that he shrank from the signature of a death-warrant, and more than once a criminal escaped the consequences of his misdeeds through the gentleness and humanity of his king.

No prince in Spanish history occupies a more exalted position for manly qualities, dauntless valor, and lavish generosity. His reign of sixty-three years is the longest, if not the most eventful, in the annals of the Peninsula. It was practically one uninterrupted campaign. This great king won thirty pitched battles over the Moslems. He was the exemplar of the prevalent crusading passion of the time. His popularity with the clergy surpassed that of any of his royal contemporaries. He founded and endowed at his own expense two thousand churches in the territory conquered from the Moors. He knew the Scriptures by heart, and during every grand religious festival he preached from the pulpit to vast congregations with all the unction and probably with more than the eloquence of an ecclesiastical orator. His memoirs, written under the title of a chronicle, disclose a profound knowledge of human nature, acute observation, and a remarkable degree of literary culture, considering the advantages he enjoyed and the circumstances under which his life was passed. Powerful even in death, the provision of his will excluding females from the succession has always been sacredly observed as an inviolable part of the constitution of the kingdom of Aragon.

The reverse of the medal is not so attractive. The famous Aragonese crusader was bigoted, perfidious, licentious, cruel. He introduced the Inquisition into Spain. Its agents, the Dominicans, were his favorite counsellors. While treating for the surrender of Elche, in the presence of his courtiers he slipped a purse of three hundred byzants into the sleeve of one of the Moorish envoys, who he had ascertained was willing to betray his countrymen for gold. He violated his royal word to Doña Teresa de Vidaure, whom he had promised to make his queen, and was supported in his infamous resolve by the Pope. He habitually repudiated the most solemn contracts entered into with his Moslem vassals and adversaries. His libertinism was conspicuous even in an age of universal social depravity. He lived with two wives at once. He entertained numerous concubines. He was said to have had a mistress for every church that he founded. He caused the tongue of the Bishop of Gerona, his spiritual adviser, to be torn out as a punishment for having betrayed certain unsavory secrets learned in the sacred privacy of the confessional. Amidst the frightful spectacles afforded by cities carried by assault, the pitiless hand of the ferocious soldiery was rarely stayed by the authority of the champion of the Christian cause, in whose eyes every infidel was legitimate prey.

The scene of action in the exhibition of the romantic drama of the Reconquest now shifts to Andalusia. It was in that province, enriched with every gift of nature, improved by every resource of industry and art, that Moorish civilization first had its origin; and it was there that, after centuries of glory, it was destined to a melancholy and disastrous end.

The monarchy of Castile, the foundation of whose future greatness had been already laid by the important military successes which preceded and followed the capture of the ancient metropolis of the khalifate, was now to be adorned with yet more decisive and brilliant triumphs. With the death of Mohammed-Ibn-Hud the integrity of the Emirate of Murcia was destroyed. The alcalde of each city, the governor of each province, forthwith aspired to independence. The absurd claims and irreconcilable quarrels of these petty rulers, none of whom were worthy of the title of prince, but the majority of whom claimed the dignity of khalif, advanced unconsciously, but none the less expeditiously, the projects of the Christian enemy. The dismemberment of Murcia had been the result of the intrigues of Mohammed, King of Granada, the founder of the famous line of the Alhamares, who was now recognized by all patriotic Moslems as the representative of their power and their religion in the Peninsula. The assassination of the daring Ibn-Hud had been injurious rather than beneficial to the national cause. None of the score of pretenders who had divided among themselves the principality of Murcia were willing to do homage to the King of Granada, whose title to sovereignty was, in fact, no better than their own; and Mohammed, whose attention was fully occupied by the movements of the Christians, was not at liberty to enforce compliance with his demands by the potent agency of the sword. After a series of indecisive operations, in which the Christians, although they succeeded in penetrating as far as the Vega of Granada, seem to have been worsted in almost every encounter, Ferdinand turned his attention to the more promising field presented by the divided and helpless Emirate of Murcia. An army under the command of Prince Alfonso had already reached the borders of that kingdom when hostilities were suspended by overtures for peace. The reputation of the Castilian monarch, while stained with many well-founded accusations of violated honor and broken faith, was so far superior to that of his contemporaries that the Moslems did not hesitate, even with the full knowledge of the ecclesiastical influences to which he was blindly subject, to intrust to him the custody of their persons and the disposal of their fortunes. Other reasons impelled them to this wise determination. Combined, the states of Murcia could never have successfully withstood the power of the Castilian monarchy; disunited, their resistance was absolutely hopeless. The dreadful fate of Moorish cities which had attempted to retard the advance of Christian conquest was always present to the effeminate population of Murcia. Ultimate subjection to either Ferdinand or Jaime was inevitable. The inhumanity of the Castilian had heretofore been far less conspicuous in instances of voluntary submission than that displayed by the cruel and perfidious Aragonese, whose armies were largely composed of foreigners, and whose ideas of equity were habitually subordinated to considerations of present gain or future advantage. With these facts before them, the Moslems of Murcia did not long hesitate in making a choice of masters. The cities of the emirate with the exception of Lorca voluntarily submitted to the ascendency of Castile, and the ceremonies incident to the establishment of royal supremacy were performed. The feudal obligations which preceded the institution of suzerainty and vassalage were then publicly acknowledged, and the credulous Moors welcomed the tyranny of a foreign prince with acclamations such as they would scarcely have vouchsafed to a ruler of their own blood and their own religion.

The respite afforded by the prestige of his victories and by the diversion of the arms of Castile to Murcia was employed by Mohammed-Ibn-Ahmar in the improvement of his kingdom and the embellishment of his capital. The encroachments and the conquests of the Spaniards had driven into exile thousands of Moslems, to whom the society of their countrymen and the unmolested exercise of their worship were privileges not to be sacrificed to the uncertain security of Christian domination. Within the space of a few years, as a result of constant immigration, the population of Granada had increased with tremendous rapidity. The most experienced cultivators, the most finished artisans, the most learned scholars who represented the declining age of Saracen genius, found a refuge from persecution and insult in the dominions of a prince not unworthy to be compared with the most distinguished sovereigns who had ever dignified the Hispano-Arab throne. Their accumulated experience and industry had enriched beyond measure the country of their adoption. Nor was that country in the charms of climate, soil, and scenery unworthy of the labors of the most energetic and accomplished of colonists. Its surface, diversified by valley, plain, and mountain, afforded the combined advantages elsewhere enjoyed only by a succession of regions in widely distant quarters of the globe. A few hundred feet of elevation or descent determined the character of the vegetation, and valuable plants, ordinarily separated by many degrees of latitude, here grew luxuriantly almost side by side. Streams fed by melting snows rushed down the mountain slope, diffusing their refreshing moisture through the teeming harvests of the Vega. This district--as the plain enclosed by the Sierra Nevada and the Alpujarras became subsequently designated--was unsurpassed in the fertility of its soil and the number and superior quality of its agricultural products. So dense was its population, that its contiguous and endless hamlets and plantations gave it the appearance of a single interminable village. Although including an area of not more than seven hundred and fifty square miles, it supplied with ease under Moslem care and economy the wants and luxuries of a hundred thousand souls. At its northern extremity, on the gentle slope of the Sierra, stood the capital, which had begun to assume the architectural splendor which distinguished the dynasty of its builders, the crumbling ruins of whose edifices are still the models of the architect and the admiration of the traveller. The vast circuit of the Alhambra, with the ancient fortress which, from a period far anterior to the foundation of the khalifate, had commanded the city with its innumerable towers, barbicans, outworks, had already been enclosed. Facing the citadel, on the most elevated point of an eminence which barbarian sagacity had, even before the date of Phœnician occupation, chosen as a place of refuge and security, a magnificent palace, the exemplar of a new and indescribably gorgeous style of architecture, had arisen. Its arcades and halls and courts did not as yet exhibit the extent of area, the exquisite taste, the profusion of ornament which subsequently distinguished the most elaborate and beautiful edifice of Mohammedan Spain. In that portion, however, which had issued from the hands of the builders the germ of its future elegance was plainly discernible. The most skilful workmen in the Peninsula--still the European centre of architectural superiority--had been employed in its construction and embellishment as well as in the design and completion of many less sumptuous and imposing, but still not less remarkable, structures of the capital. A constant influx of dextrous and ingenious colonists from the provinces harassed by Christian cruelty and intolerance had developed, to a degree which could scarcely have been anticipated by the most sanguine political economist, the inexhaustible mineral, agricultural, and commercial resources of the kingdom. As a legitimate consequence of this extraordinary impulse received by every department of trade and husbandry, the revenues of the state were prodigiously increased. With the means and the opportunity of enjoyment came a growing demand for every article of luxury. Through the ports of Almeria and Malaga a maritime trade was maintained with distant countries which greatly enriched the merchants of Granada. The capital was adorned with superb buildings dedicated to the noble purposes of public instruction and religious worship. A portion of the intellectual ambition and literary culture which had exalted the Ommeyade metropolis to such well-merited pre-eminence seemed to have been inherited by Granada. Her institutions of learning were superior to all others of contemporaneous Europe. The works of her historians, travellers, and scholars survive as the masterpieces of the age in which they were composed. It is to the genius of Mohammed I. that the origin of her prosperity and influence must be attributed. The Moslem immigrant, deluded by a false and momentary security, believed that he had, after many wanderings, at last discovered a permanent abode. But the sagacious mind of Mohammed was deceived by no such pleasing anticipations. He recognized the full significance of Christian encroachment, and the eventual result of a conflict already prolonged for more than six hundred years, and whose termination could not long be deferred. In conjunction with his military talents he brought to bear all the resources of political craft and far-sighted diplomacy. He purchased the influence of powerful nobles and ecclesiastics at the court of Castile. He maintained the closest and most amicable relations with the sultans and sheiks of Northern Africa, whose inextinguishable hostility to the Almohade dynasty made them the faithful and enthusiastic allies of a prince who represented a faction devoted to its extermination. The important consequences of these wise and able measures subsequently became apparent in the hour of Christian success and Moslem extremity.

The rise of the monarchy of Granada in opulence and strength was coincident with, and, indeed, partly resultant from, the decline of Moorish power in the remaining states of the Peninsula. Sancho II., King of Portugal, was gradually adding to his possessions the isolated and feeble remnants of what had formerly constituted one of the most important principalities of the khalifate. In the prosecution of conquest, Jaime had invaded the region south of the Xucar, which had just before been declared inviolate by the provisions of a deliberately executed treaty. With the single exception of Jaen, the whole of Northern Andalusia had been incorporated into the monarchy of Castile. After the submission of Murcia, Ferdinand, impatient of inaction, prepared for another campaign. He penetrated into the Vega of Granada, desolated its plantations, and, returning through the valley of the Genil, where his destructive march was but too clearly indicated by the blackened remains of crops and dwellings, encamped before Jaen. The governor of that city, Ibn-Omar, an officer of indomitable courage and inexhaustible fertility of resource, showed himself eminently worthy of the trust reposed in him. The advanced position of Jaen gave it unusual value in a military point of view. It was the extreme outpost of the Moslem possessions towards the north. Its loss implied the certain fall of Seville as well as the subjection of the remaining territory of Andalusia, and would afford an unobstructed course to an enemy who desired to invade Granada. The city was only fifty miles from the capital of that kingdom. These facts made its retention in Moorish hands a strategical necessity. Its strength and the bravery of its citizens were such that hitherto every effort to take it had been futile. Anticipating the object of Ferdinand, the King of Granada had sent a large convoy with provisions and arms for the garrison, which was delayed and narrowly escaped capture. Then he attempted at the head of a numerous but undisciplined army to raise the siege. The Moorish peasantry, ill-fitted to cope with veterans skilled from boyhood in the profession of arms, were easily routed, and the situation of the besieged grew desperate. It was evident that the city was doomed, and its occupation by the Christians must, in the present defenceless condition of the Moslems, be the melancholy precursor of a long series of misfortunes, of religious persecution, poverty, slavery, and exile. Then it was that Mohammed determined upon a course which his shrewdness convinced him was the only expedient through whose means the integrity of his kingdom and the preservation of his people could be secured. He appeared voluntarily in the camp of the Castilian king and announced his willingness to render him homage. The penetration of the astute Moslem had not miscalculated the effect of this extraordinary resolve upon the mind of his generous rival. The surprise and gratification of Ferdinand at the proposal inclined his disposition, ever averse to acts of deliberate cruelty and injustice, to a display of unusual magnanimity. He accepted with unconcealed pleasure the offer of Mohammed; the mutual obligations of lord and vassal were assumed, and the sovereign of Granada agreed to attend, when summoned, the national assembly of the Cortes, to furnish a stated number of soldiers in case of war,--even against the votaries of his own religion,--and to pay each year into the treasury of Castile a tribute of fifty thousand maravedis of gold. The duty of protection incumbent on the suzerain, according to the laws of feudalism, was solemnly acknowledged by Ferdinand, and the surrender of Jaen, as an assurance of good faith, was the significant preliminary of a temporary but advantageous peace. The impolitic liberality of their monarch in granting such favorable concessions to an enemy reduced to despair has been, perhaps not with injustice, severely criticised by Spanish historians and churchmen. In this instance, at all events, the royal saint was not guided by celestial inspiration, and the adoption of a treaty inimical to the interests of his country prolonged the existence of Islamism in the Peninsula for a period of two hundred and fifty years.

The success which had attended the movements of the King of Castile in the recent campaign incited him to further and even more strenuous efforts. Seville, the greatest city of Moslem Spain, the centre of a region of prodigious fertility, the seat of a most lucrative maritime and internal trade, a city whose wealth and manifold attractions could hardly be exaggerated by either the pride of the Moor or the cupidity of the Spaniard, was still in the hands of the infidel. At that time its population, increased by thousands of refugees and exiles, was larger than at any previous period of its history. The productiveness of the soil and the patient industry of the cultivator had repaired the effects of foreign depredation and domestic violence. Its environs, remote from the seat of war, had not suffered from repeated and systematic devastation such as had afflicted the suburbs of Cordova. From the summit of the Giralda, for a distance of fifty miles on every side, could be seen a continuous mass of verdure dotted with farm-houses and villas, interspersed with olive plantations, vineyards, and orange groves, and intersected by the silver threads of countless canals and rivulets. Occasionally the ruins of a hamlet or the brushwood which covered the surface of a once flourishing district proclaimed the former presence of an enemy, but in general the appearance of the surrounding country did not differ materially from that which it had worn in the most thriving days of the Moslem domination. The quays of the city were crowded with shipping from every port of the Mediterranean. The streets swarmed with people. The markets, provided alike with the most common articles of daily consumption and the most expensive luxuries, afforded unmistakable evidences of general prosperity, and the imposing and splendid edifices dedicated to public utility, private ostentation, and religious worship disclosed the extraordinary development of architectural taste and the substantial results of princely munificence. In its external aspect, therefore, Seville still exhibited an apparent, if deceptive, image of imperial greatness. Her power, however, as was perfectly realized by her citizens, rested upon an insecure and crumbling foundation. Many of those citizens had once been residents of flourishish communities which the fortunes of war had delivered to the merciless Christian. Their mosques had been profaned. Their household gods had been scattered. Their children were in the harems of the licentious noble or ecclesiastic. They, more than all others, understood the deplorable results of conquest, and the persevering, the indomitable, the resistless spirit which inspired the measures and guided the movements of the Christian armies. The fears which had for so long agitated the inhabitants of Seville were now about to be realized. In a political as well as in a geographical sense the city and its dependencies were completely isolated. At the south was the Mediterranean; in all other directions the Castilian power encroached upon the limits of Sevillian territory; the sole monarch of kindred blood and a common faith was a vassal of the enemy. Other causes conspired to render the separation more complete. Berber influence, extinct elsewhere in Spain and fast vanishing in its original seat across the sea, still maintained a precarious but decided foothold in the centre of Andalusia. The Emir of Seville, Abu-Abdallah, was a prince of the Almohade dynasty. The unpopularity of that abhorred race had by no means declined with its capacity to effect either substantial benefit or serious injury. In the breast of the Arab partisan all other animosities were reconciled when confronted with the universal execration which attached to the names and the character of Almohade and African. Two centuries and a half had passed since the distrust and the partiality of Al-Mansur had elevated to posts of pre-eminent dignity and power individuals of a race that Arab pride disdained as inferior, and whose influence subsequent experience had conclusively proved to be inconceivably destructive to art, learning, and every instinct of civilization. Since that fatal day the supremacy of Islam in the West had steadily declined. Results of the inherent evils of a defective political system, and of the refractory character of a mixed population whose elements were incapable of thorough and permanent fusion, were commonly attributed to the sinister influence with which tribal prejudice and hereditary malevolence invested every act of an aggressive and finally dominant faction.

The surrender of Jaen and the unexpected submission of the King of Granada imparted extraordinary power and distinction to the cause of Ferdinand. His arms were regarded as invincible alike by his Moorish enemies and by his admiring subjects and allies. The inhabitants of Seville heard with consternation of the removal of the last bulwark which guarded the frontier and of the defection of the last Moslem prince who, despite the persistence of ancient prejudices and the memory of recent wrongs, it had been fondly hoped might still have made common cause with the adherents of the same religious belief against the enemies of Islam. The activity of the conqueror afforded them but little time for defensive measures. The great vassals of the kingdom were summoned to the camp at Cordova, the starting-point of the campaign. Among them was Mohammed, whose fealty to his suzerain was attested by a retinue of five hundred picked and splendidly mounted horsemen. Orders were sent to Biscay to equip and despatch a fleet to blockade the mouth of the Guadalquivir and to intercept all communication with Africa. The environs of Carmona were wasted with fire and sword. Alcalá de Guadair was taken and presented to the King of Granada as a token of esteem and confidence from his feudal lord. As the main body of the army was about to move, Ferdinand received intelligence of the death of his mother, Queen Berenguela, who at the advanced age of seventy-six years was, as the regent of the kingdom and the counsellor of her son, not unequal to the assumption of the cares and responsibilities of a great and turbulent empire. In the mind of the stoical and ambitious sovereign of Castile, the misfortune of domestic bereavement was unhesitatingly subordinated to the important interests of country and religion. The campaign was inaugurated without delay. The ruthless policy of an age which made war with a barbarity at present happily extinct demanded the absolute destruction of everything which could afford either shelter or subsistence to a foe. The Castilians, acting upon this principle, soon transformed the beautiful plain of Seville into a prospect of appalling desolation. The houses were burned. The harvests were trampled into the earth. The vineyards were destroyed. The orchards, the orange-groves, the almond and pomegranate plantations were cut down and set on fire. For leagues in every direction the view was obscured by dense clouds of smoke rising from half-consumed trees and burning villages. The city itself was enveloped in darkness which at times made the streets impassable and exceeded the gloom of a starless night. This exhibition of severity was not lost upon the inhabitants of the more defenceless towns of Andalusia. Carmona, Loja, Alcolea hastened to make terms with the invader. Others, among which was the fortress of Cantillana, held out till the last, and received a terrible lesson for their obstinacy. All places which offered resistance were stormed, delivered up to pillage, and every living being within their walls was massacred without mercy. The capitulation of other cities and the utter devastation of the country deprived the people of Seville of the prospect of reinforcements and the means of obtaining supplies. The produce of the crops, swept away by the Castilian cavalry, had been their dependence for replenishing the failing magazines of the capital, and upon the resistance of the outlying fortresses had rested the hope of securing time to reap the harvests. The only resource of the Almohade prince was now with his kinsmen beyond the Strait. His appeal for help was answered by the donation of a fleet of twenty galleys, which attempted to arrest the progress of the Christian squadron about to ascend the Guadalquivir. A naval battle was fought; the Moors, notwithstanding their superior numbers and their long experience in this kind of encounters, were defeated, and the Castilians, proceeding up the river without molestation, cast anchor in front of the city. The arrival of the squadron was the signal for energetic operations. The army, which had heretofore confined its efforts to the persecution of a defenceless peasantry, was brought within the restraints of discipline. The established policy of the Christian sovereigns, who, in the conduct of important enterprises, endeavored to impress upon the besieged the hopelessness of protracted resistance, was again observed. Substantial buildings were erected for the shelter of the soldiery. The avenues were lined with shops which, divided according to the various trades, suggested the occupations and the traffic of a considerable city. The families of the troops took up their residence within the intrenchments. Severe police regulations were established. Fortifications, whose materials and general plan were sufficiently solid and durable for the protection of a populous town rather than for the defence of a temporary encampment, rose before the eyes of the disheartened Moslems. A. strict blockade was maintained; the predatory excursions of the Christians were extended beyond the limits of the already ravaged territory, and the surviving provincials forced to take advantage of the impregnable security of mountain strongholds. The difficulties attending the prosecution of the enterprise in which he had embarked soon impressed themselves upon the Castilian King. Seville at that time was one of the best fortified cities in Europe. It was also one of the most populous, as it contained eighty thousand families, divided into twenty-four tribes according to the ancient Arabic system; and, as those families were polygamous, the number of its inhabitants could hardly have been less than five hundred thousand. Long exposed to the hazards of revolution and conquest, it had been strengthened by every dynasty by which it had been governed. A double line of walls, protected by a moat, encircled it. Its outworks were of unusual solidity, among these the Tower of Gold, which still exists in excellent preservation and indicates the massive construction of these defences, guarded the approach from the river. The present condition of the fortifications, some of which were contemporaneous with the Cæsars, suggests the ease with which an enemy provided only with the comparatively imperfect appliances of mediæval engineering could have been repelled. Its greatest weakness was to be found in the multitude of refugees who, driven from the open country, thronged its habitations, inviting, by the reckless disregard of sanitary precautions and by an increased consumption of provisions, the insidious approaches of disease and famine.

The employment of the influence of the Holy See in the wars of Valencia offered a precedent too valuable to be neglected in the present emergency. The tremendously effective intervention of the Papacy was again solicited to arouse the latent enthusiasm of Europe. From every corner of Spain, from every land subject to the spiritual jurisdiction of Rome, volunteers marched to join the legions of Christendom before the gates of Seville. Unlike former crusades, which had assumed a more or less partisan character and whose summons had been generally unheeded save by those directly interested in the result, representatives of all the states enclosed by the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean, and the ocean hastened to participate in the perils and to share the glory of a campaign destined to remove from Southern Andalusia the most serious impediment to Christian supremacy and the most formidable adversary of Spanish power. The princes of Castile, Aragon, Portugal, appeared escorted by the chivalry of their several kingdoms. From the pulpits of a thousand cathedrals and churches resounded the stirring call to arms. Frantic appeals to the fanaticism of the masses were made alike by famous prelates in great ecclesiastical assemblies and by itinerant friars at the wayside cross. Bishops cast aside the habiliments of the altar for the panoply of war. The metropolitan of Santiago, followed by a body of Galician peasantry, came to contribute, by his ghostly counsels and the inspiration of the patron saint of Spain, to the final overthrow of the accursed infidel. A motley assemblage of foreigners, of unsavory antecedents and mercenary character, added to the numbers, if not the efficiency, of the Christian host.

The siege of Seville, which lasted for seventeen months, proved to be the most arduous and obstinately contested struggle in the history of the Reconquest. The city, with a river easily accessible to an enemy on one side and the others surrounded by a vast and level plain, was necessarily compelled to rely for its defensive capacity and advantages mainly upon the art and ingenuity of man. Across the Guadalquivir was the suburb now known as Triana, whose fortifications, not inferior in strength to those of the capital itself, were manned by a brave and determined garrison. A bridge of boats moored with heavy chains connected the city and the suburb. The communication of these two points was a source of constant annoyance to the Castilians, and the investment had hardly been completed when the King of Granada volunteered to undertake the destruction of the bridge. A fleet of fire-rafts was prepared, but it drifted ashore before reaching its destination. The purpose of the besiegers was subsequently accomplished by means of boats laden with stone, whose weight, aided by the force of the current, shattered the bridge and drove its swinging fragments upon opposite banks of the river. The isolation of Triana failed to compel its surrender, which was one of the principal objects of the attack. Upon the broken bridge the frequent sallies of the garrison still carried death and terror into the Christian ranks. No nation of that period had a more thorough acquaintance with the art of defensive warfare than the Spanish Moslems. The sudden sally, the skirmish, the night attack were not more congenial to their nature than was their ability to detect, and their skill to foil, the well-matured designs of an enemy. The ramparts of Seville and Triana were equipped with the most formidable engines known to the military science of the age. The Saracen catapults projected for immense distances and with crushing power masses of stone and iron weighing more than a thousand pounds. Their balistas cast a hundred arrows at once, and the force of these missiles was so tremendous that they transfixed with ease a horse completely sheathed in steel. The secret of the composition of Greek fire the Moors had long before learned from the soldiers of Constantinople, and this dangerous agent of destruction had in their hands reached an even higher degree of efficiency than it had elsewhere attained. Numbers of movable towers, together with their unfortunate occupants, were consumed by its unquenchable flames before they had time to approach the walls. Considering the long duration of the siege, but little damage was inflicted upon the fortifications of the city. The ordinary resources of engineering skill became useless in the face of the vigilance and determination of the garrison. Repeated attempts to carry the place by escalade were repulsed. It was found impracticable to mine the walls. Owing to the accuracy and penetration of the projectiles discharged by the enemy, the machines of the Christians could not be worked within a range that would prove effective. The usual means at the disposal of an attacking force having failed, it became necessary to resort to a blockade, which the great numbers of the besieged must in the end render successful. Hunger and despair were thus eventually found to be more powerful weapons than all the military appliances at the command of an extensive monarchy, than the enthusiastic energy of a great nation, than the combined efforts of a thoroughly organized hierarchy, than even the benedictions and indulgences of the Papal throne. All of these influences had been exerted to effect the subjection of the Moorish capital, and all had hitherto proved unavailing. The Moslems, inclined to come to terms before their provisions were entirely consumed and the patience of their enemies exhausted, attempted to treat upon a basis of ordinary tribute and vassalage,--a proposition which the King of Castile peremptorily declined to consider. They then continued to offer concessions more and more favorable to the dignity of the Christian monarchy, until a treaty was finally agreed upon. It was with the greatest reluctance that the piety of the Moslems consented to the surrender of their great mosque, which, with its minaret, was the most sacred as well as the most conspicuous monument of the city. They proposed its demolition as one of the conditions of surrender. To this Ferdinand replied that if a single brick of the edifice was disturbed he would not leave a Moor alive in Seville. The title to the capital and its dependencies was transferred to the Castilian crown. The inhabitants who preferred to remain the subjects of the conqueror were assured the enjoyment of their laws and their religion, and were to be liable only to the imposition of taxes legalized by Moslem usage; those to whom such propositions were repugnant were permitted to retain their personal effects, and were promised transportation to any land possessed by their co-religionists which they might, without restriction, select. The policy of a court which habitually encouraged the infraction of treaties was not favorable to the retention of a population whose skill and industry were the true sources of the wealth of Andalusia. The surviving members of the Almohade dynasty passed over to Africa. A large majority of the Moors emigrated to Granada, where the liberality of their new sovereign and their own energy and perseverance soon raised them to a higher condition of prosperity than ever. The conduct of Mohammed I., who was placed in an anomalous and painful situation by an inexorable decree of destiny, elicited the unstinted praise of both friend and foe. His efforts contributed largely to the success of the Christians. His military accomplishments and personal courage were the admiration of cavaliers versed in every martial exercise and in every stratagem of war. He enjoyed the esteem and confidence of his royal suzerain. Yet, while participating in the triumphs of his new allies, he never renounced the ties of blood and faith which still bound him to his countrymen. His intercession procured for them advantageous terms in the day of disaster and humiliation. His sympathy alleviated the bitterness of defeat. And when no other alternative was left to the vanquished excepting the capricious indulgence of a perfidious enemy or voluntary exile, they found under his sceptre a secure and happy refuge from insult and oppression. More than a hundred thousand of the most industrious peasantry in the world were thus added to the population of his dominions by the politic and generous behavior of the King of Granada. These colonists received ample grants of lands. Seeds and implements of husbandry were furnished them by the government, and they were exempted from all taxation for a term of years. By this great immigration, which impoverished the territory conquered by the Christians, the states of Granada received a proportionate increase of profit and affluence.

The occupation of Seville by the Castilians was characterized by the usual ceremonies incident to the capture of a Mussulman city. The mosques were purified and consecrated to the Christian worship. In the division of the spoil and the distribution of the rich states of the Moslem, the Church exercised without remonstrance the privileges of priority of selection and exorbitant estimate of service. In the partition of infidel possessions the pretensions of the altar were fast becoming paramount to the rights of the crown. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction, suspended since the era of Visigothic supremacy, was restored. A metropolitan diocese was established. A multitude of religious houses were founded by the piety of the King and the zeal or repentance of his followers; thousands of colonists supplied the vacancies caused by emigration, and Seville within a few months assumed the dull and cheerless appearance of a Spanish city. The maritime district of Andalusia, to the westward, as well as the towns situated between the capital and the coast, successively acknowledged the claims of Spanish sovereignty, and the undisputed authority of Castile and Leon soon prevailed from the mountains of Biscay to the Mediterranean Sea.

While these events were transpiring, the Kings of Aragon and Portugal had wrested from the grasp of the Moslems, enfeebled by internal dissensions and constant defeat, the last fragments of the empire of the khalifs; and there remained of the extensive territory once ruled by the mighty potentates of Cordova but a single district, designated in the enumeration of their states as a province, but now daily increasing in renown as the tributary but powerful kingdom of Granada.

The character of Ferdinand III., like that of so many of his successors, was largely formed by the monitions of ecclesiastical counsellors. He was most emphatically the creature of his age,--an age of romantic undertakings, of mistaken piety, of religious intolerance. Like the King of Aragon, his contemporary, the early years of his reign were disturbed by domestic discord. Like him, also, he triumphed by the aid of the clergy. Profoundly sagacious, he was ever ready to profit by the factional quarrels of his infidel enemies. He made large additions to his power by furnishing Castilian troops to aid the ambition or the enmity of Saracen partisans in return for the cession of important castles and fertile territory. As a pretended neutral, alternately supporting the pretensions and promoting the feuds of rival Moslem princes, the Crown of Castile was always the gainer. King Ferdinand was a worthy representative of the proselyting spirit which characterized his royal line from the very institution of the monarchy. Popular with the masses, his subjects had declared him worthy of canonization even in his lifetime. To the ecclesiastical order he was an ideal sovereign. His donations to the Church were frequent and prodigal. In the occupation of conquered cities he always permitted the crucifix to take precedence of the sceptre. When the wretched Albigenses, fleeing from the tortures of Montfort and the swords of his bravos, attempted to find an asylum beyond the Pyrenees, the pious King of Castile burned all who fell into his hands, and even performed the highly meritorious duty of personally assisting at the sacrifice and of heaping fagots upon the funeral pyres which consumed those obstinate and abominable heretics.

The conqueror of Andalusia fixed his final residence in the largest of the provincial capitals which had bowed before the invincible efforts of his arms. A few hours before his death, on the thirtieth of May, 1252, in abasing humility he received the last sacrament, kneeling upon the bare earth, with a rope about his neck, in the guise and the attitude of a convicted malefactor.

In the great cathedral of Seville, the most incomparable monument of ecclesiastical architecture in Europe, a magnificent chapel has been raised to his memory. Before the high altar the venerated monarch lies enshrined in a casket of massy silver. Mounted effigies, encased in the armor of the thirteenth century, tower above the kneeling worshippers. On the walls, carved in stone, are the historic escutcheons of Castile and Leon. The royal sepulchre bears an inscription in four languages--Latin, Spanish, Hebrew, and Arabic--the respective idioms of the clergy, the people, the tributary, and the conquered race. Around it, on each anniversary of his death, a detachment of Granadan Moors, with lighted tapers in their hands, once stood motionless and in silence. To-day, three times in every year, the body of Castile’s most famous sovereign is exposed to public view adorned with all the pomp of royalty,--with the crown, the sceptre, the robes; mass is said, and a regiment of soldiers salute the mouldering remains of one of the most eminent and successful commanders of his time.