Chapter XV: The Moslem Domination in Sicily (3)

The mineral resources of Sicily were of remarkable richness and variety. Gold and silver were found in considerable quantities. There were mines of lead, iron, quicksilver, copper, antimony. Volcanic products, such as vitriol, sal-ammoniac, naphtha, pitch, and sulphur, were obtained with trifling labor. The deposits of rock-salt and alum, of inexhaustible extent and unusual purity, were of themselves sufficient, if properly developed, to insure the prosperity of any nation. The fine jaspers and marbles of the Sicilian quarries were well known to the builders of antiquity, and the Moorish architects were not slow to recognize their excellence and to employ them in the construction of the palaces with which the Arab nobles embellished the suburbs of the great centres of commerce and power. The sunny slopes of the hills furnished abundant pasturage for droves of cattle and flocks of goats and sheep. The horses of Italy were renowned for their fleetness and symmetry. Among the pursuits of the Saracen colonists apiculture was not neglected, and honey was exported in quantities to Italy and other countries of Christian Europe. But meagre accounts of the manufactures and trade of Moorish Sicily have been transmitted to posterity. It is well known, however, that commercial relations existed between the principal ports of the island and the maritime nations of the Mediterranean. The merchantmen of its thriving seaports exchanged the products of the East and West in the harbors of Malaga, Alexandria, Constantinople. No people surpassed the Sicilians in the delicacy and beauty of their fabrics, and the silks of Palermo, interwoven with texts and devices in gold, were highly esteemed, and much sought after by the luxurious potentates and nobles of the Mohammedan world.

Of all the imposing palaces, baths, and mosques which once adorned the Moorish cities of the island, unhappily not a vestige now remains. Nothing but a few scattered and broken inscriptions has survived the violence of mediæval times, to attest the pomp and splendor of the Sicilian emirs. The architecture of no other people has suffered such complete and systematic annihilation. Two or three structures, erected during the rule of the Norman princes, but whose proportions and ornamentation, while remarkable, yet disclose unmistakably the decadence of architectural skill, are all we have upon which to found an opinion of the magnificence of Mohammedan Palermo.

It must not be forgotten that the advances of the Sicilian Moslems in the arts of peace were made under the most discouraging circumstances. War was the normal state of the country from the invasion by Asad-Ibn-Forat to the surrender of the last castle to the Normans. When the Saracens were not engaged in hostilities with the Christians, they amused themselves by cutting each other’s throats. In every instance, whether plundered by Greeks or persecuted by Moslems of an unfriendly sect, the husbandman and the merchant were always the sufferers. That agriculture and commerce could exist at all under such difficulties may well awaken surprise; that a civilization superior to that of any state of Christian Europe should have been developed and sustained in spite of these obstacles is an anomaly without precedent in the history of nations.

The administration of the laws by the dominant race was, of course, based upon the principles of Moslem jurisprudence. It was not unusual, however, for these laws to be either evaded or executed with a severity never contemplated by their author. Constant familiarity with bloodshed and habitual defiance of their authority by the populace had brutalized the rulers of Sicily. They affected a reserve characteristic of the worst forms of Oriental despotism. Their features were unknown to the great body of their subjects. From motives of caution, or to enhance the mysterious dignity investing their office, they gave audience and dispensed justice from behind a curtain which entirely concealed the throne. Like the most degenerate of the Persian Fatimites, they travelled unseen in litters, attended by the effeminate ministers of their vices. The few who attained to military distinction by active operations in the field died of disease; a large proportion of those who intrusted the conduct of campaigns to subordinates perished by the hand of the assassin.

In no part of the domain of Islam was the population of a more diversified character than in Sicily. Discord and disunion were the inevitable results of its composition. In the face of an enemy, the valor of its warriors was never questioned. In the excitement of a revolution, no man was safe from the dagger of his friend. Individuals deriving their origin from so many different countries naturally brought with them the experience, the arts, the industry, the accomplishments, the vices, of their respective nations. Under a dynasty of independent and resolute princes able to repress the outbreaks of tribal discord, Sicily would undoubtedly have risen to the most exalted rank in the scale of civilization. As it was, with all her serious impediments to progress, she had no rival excepting Spain among the kingdoms of Europe. Her armies wrested from the Byzantine Emperor one of the most valuable provinces of his dominions. Her navy for a considerable period enjoyed the maritime superiority of both the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. The country, in spite of civil commotion and the consequent insecurity, was densely populated. In 938 the inhabitants of the valley of Mazara alone amounted to two million,--half of whom were Moslems. The elegant luxury of Palermo surpassed in taste while it equalled in splendor the barbaric pomp of Constantinople. The domestic and social conditions prevailing in Germany, Italy, France, and England were incomparably inferior in all the qualities by which the advancement and happiness of nations are promoted to those, defective as they were, by which society in Moorish Sicily was organized and controlled. In the province of letters the Sicilian Moslems seem to have merited distinction not inferior to that achieved by their Andalusian brethren. A long catalogue of authors, whose compositions, for the most part, unhappily have perished, indicate the esteem in which literature was held, as well as the prodigal liberality by which the efforts of its professors were rewarded.

The influence of Sicilian civilization upon the Normans exhibits the counterpart of that exercised by the decaying genius of Rome upon the fierce and untutored barbarians. But the minds of the former were far better fitted to receive the impressions imparted by association and example than were those of the followers of Alaric and Alboin. They were somewhat accustomed to the conveniences and the luxuries of life, and not entirely ignorant of the amenities of social intercourse. They had travelled far and had insensibly made comparisons between the usages of many nations. The architectural remains of the mighty empire of the Cæsars had awakened their admiration. They were familiar with the defaced, but still awe-inspiring, monuments of Roman grandeur. Tradition, embellished with a thousand enchanting legends, had brought before them visions of the majesty and glory of the greatest powers of the ancient world. Intimate contact with the Greek colonists of Southern Italy, who still retained in a measure the graces and the refinement of their ancestors, gave them well-defined ideas of the civilization enjoyed by the original seat of literary superiority, of architectural perfection, of artistic excellence. Thus the Normans were ready, even eager, to receive from their Moorish vassals lessons in those elegant pursuits whose advantages they had long appreciated, but had never enjoyed. The Moslems, as a rule, were granted every courtesy by their Christian neighbors, who quickly recognized their superior intellectual acquirements. They celebrated in public, and without molestation, the festivals of their religion. The rich freely indulged their inclination for splendid attire and imposing retinues. They had their own ministers of justice and of worship, their markets, mosques, and judicial tribunals. The majority of the merchants of Palermo under the Norman domination were Mohammedans.

Reluctant, perhaps unable, to discriminate, the invaders grew corrupt, and the evils characteristic of a sensual and luxurious race were insensibly adopted with the benefits which its culture afforded. After the Norman conquest, the spirit of Moorish civilization still remained paramount. The Saracens formed no unimportant part of the military establishment of their conquerors, maintained both for service and ostentation. At the siege of Amalfi, in 1096, twenty thousand of them served under the Norman standard. In 1113, when Adelaide, mother of Count Roger, went to Ascalon to marry Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, she presented him with a band of Moorish archers splendidly uniformed in scarlet and gold. The forms of government observed by the emirs were retained. Moslem ministers and magistrates directed the administration of the state, regulated the finances, dispensed justice. The Arabic tongue continued to be not only the recognized medium of communication between all classes of society, but the vehicle of public acts and edicts, and the official idiom of the courts of law. Over the gateways of palaces constructed by the princes of the family of De Hauteville are still to be deciphered legends whose sentiment is unmistakably Mohammedan. The Norman coins were stamped with sentences from the Koran and with the date of the Hegira. The dress, the manners, the etiquette of public audiences, the habits of private intercourse, became essentially Oriental. The umbrella, an emblem of royalty borrowed from the Fatimites of Egypt, was borne over the heads of the Norman kings on occasions of ceremony. The robes of distinguished personages were interwoven with Arabic texts, whose characters and whose significance excited the pious horror of the orthodox. The regulation of the royal household was modelled after that of the emirate. The very titles of the public officials were Arabic. The education of youth was committed without reserve to learned doctors of the Mussulman or the Hebrew faith. In some of the harems of the Norman lords the inmates were all Mohammedans; in those of others, Christian damsels shared the favor and the affection of the licentious noble. No restrictions were imposed upon the religious prejudices of either, and it is related that the Christians, convinced by the arguments or the fascinations of their infidel associates, not infrequently became proselytes to the doctrines of Islam. Under the enlightened government of the Normans, persecution was unknown. Indeed, the vanquished people were regarded with such partiality that Count Roger absolutely forbade that any Moslem should, even by the most gentle means, be converted to Christianity. The clergy, unable to resist the prevailing influence, suffered their sacred edifices to be adorned with sentences from the Koran, whose monotheistic tendency accorded ill with the accepted maxims of patristic theology and the infallible edicts of ecclesiastical councils. From the balcony of the minaret and the tower of the cathedral the voice of the muezzin or the pealing of the bell called the pious to worship, and from the altars of every community arose in unison the praise of Allah and the invocation of the Triune God.

The traveller Ibn-Haukal and the geographer Edrisi have left us interesting and lively descriptions of the great Moslem cities of Sicily under Norman rule. Of these Palermo easily took precedence, not only on account of its being the metropolis, but by reason of the superior wealth, intelligence, and culture of its citizens. Of the number of its inhabitants no data have survived to enable us to form an approximate computation. They must have amounted, however, to several hundred thousand, as five hundred mosques were required for the worship of the Mussulmans, and, as a rule, the Christian population in every community equalled, if it did not exceed, that of the sectaries of Islam. Many of these structures were superb temples, whose costly decorations attested the liberality of the prince or the devotion of the multitude. Some were of vast dimensions; the largest could accommodate with ease seven thousand worshippers. The vanity of private individuals, whose wealth permitted them to indulge their taste for ostentation and offer an exhibition of zeal not always above suspicion, possessed mosques of their own, from which all were excluded save their own relatives, dependents, vassals, and slaves. But not alone in their places of worship did the prodigal and luxurious citizens of Palermo emulate the magnificence of their neighbors. The palaces of the rich and the great were unsurpassed by those of any Moslem capital excepting Cordova. The skill and delicacy of the labor expended upon them corresponded with the rare and precious character of the materials of which they were composed. The walls were encased with variegated marbles, the floors were formed of mosaic, the ceilings exhibited a labyrinth of geometric tracery relieved by brilliant coloring and resplendent with gold. Rows of aromatic shrubs filled the court-yards with their fragrance. The predilection of the Arab for water--the greatest treasure of the Desert--was everywhere manifested. Aqueducts composed of tiers of towering arches skirted the mountains in all directions. Canals traversed the plantations and gardens of the extensive suburbs. Fountains of classic design cooled the air of parks and promenades or quenched the thirst of the tired and dusty caravan. The city, from east to west, was intersected by the market-place, a wide street paved with hewn-stone and lined with shops filled with the most valuable commodities known to the commerce of the age. The central or older portion of the city was the seat of the court and the residence of the monarch. The suburbs almost entirely surrounded it, and contained the quays, the warehouses, the markets, the caravansaries, necessary to the traffic of a great maritime emporium. Like Cordova, Palermo was divided into five separate quarters, each of which was isolated from the others when the gates were closed. The houses were of blocks of polished stone put together with the greatest accuracy, the streets were lighted, the mansions of commanding height and symmetrical proportions, the habitations of the poor more commodious than the dwellings of many of the wealthy burghers of Paris and London. In the time of Ibn-Jubair, who visited Palermo during the reign of William the Good, the costumes and the manners of the Christians were not distinguishable from those of their Moslem vassals. The ladies wore veils of different colors and garments of mingled silk and gold. Dainty slippers, embroidered in arabesques with the precious metals, protected their tiny feet, jewelled ornaments of exquisite patterns glittered upon their bosoms, and the aroma of costly essences which enveloped them revealed their passionate love of perfumes. The fusion of races was nowhere so apparent or so remarkable as in the unrestricted intimacy maintained, and in the refined courtesies reciprocated by the once hostile nationalities which composed the population of the Norman capital. The amenities of social intercourse required the practice of politeness and of self-restraint even among enemies. In the time of William the Good cruelty and rapine were stigmatized as Teutonic vices.

The noble and elevating pursuits of science were not neglected under the Moors of Sicily and their intelligent and progressive conquerors, the Norman princes. Geography, astronomy, chemistry, and medicine were studied with diligence and success. Edrisi, whose descent from the royal dynasty of Fez has been obscured by the eminent reputation he attained as a geographer and a philosopher, made for Roger II. a planisphere which represented at once the surface of the earth and the positions of the heavenly bodies. From the minarets of Palermo, the Arab astronomer observed the motions of the planets, the periodical recurrence of eclipses, the relative positions and general distribution of the stars in space, by the aid of instruments invented on the Guadalquivir and the Tigris, and of tables computed on the plains of Babylon centuries before the Christian era. The Moslem thus consecrated to the prosecution of scientific research the towers of his most sacred temples, at a time when from the cathedrals of Europe doctrines were promulgated which menaced, with the severest penalties that ecclesiastical malignity could devise, every occupation which in any way contributed to the emancipation of reason or the intellectual progress of humanity. Astrology, that delusive study so flattering to the vanity of human nature, and so alluring to the imagination from the preternatural power supposed to be wielded by the charlatans who practised it, too often discredited the results of astronomical investigation; just as the vain and costly pursuit of the philosopher’s stone brought into disrepute at first the pre-eminently useful science of chemistry. The Sicilians were firm believers in the influence exerted by the heavenly bodies upon the actions and the destiny of man. The attempt to extract the precious metals from the most unpromising substances of nature had long engaged the attention of the Arab, and the cities of the island swarmed with impostors who cast horoscopes, interpreted dreams, and predicted future events by pretended communion with the stars, while the fires in the laboratory of the alchemist were maintained at the expense of innumerable dupes of their own credulity, whose hopes were sustained by mystery and fraud, while their purses were being systematically depleted. The superior intelligence of the higher classes afforded no immunity from these popular delusions; the noble embraced their principles with the same confidence and the same avidity as were displayed by the plebeian and the slave. The home of the alchemist was habitually frequented by the highest officials of the court, and the astrologer, with his peculiar garb, his long staff engraved with talismanic signs, his flowing beard, and his air of mysterious assurance, was the most welcome guest in the palaces of Palermo.

The Arabs of Sicily, with their brethren of Spain, owing to their extraordinary and thorough proficiency in medicine and surgery, were the most skilful practitioners in Europe. Their eminence in this profession was, to a large extent, shared by the Jews, who, as a race, were the recipients of royal favor and public confidence under the Norman as well as under the Saracen domination. The peer of the Moslem in every branch of scientific knowledge, the Hebrew brought to the study and application of the principles of the healing art the same keen perception and unerring tact which enabled him in all ages to rise to the most commanding positions in the mercantile world.

In their acquaintance with the mechanical arts the Sicilians were not inferior to their most accomplished contemporaries. Their hydraulic system was provided with all the appliances which had been tested by those nations whose arid soil required the artificial stimulus of irrigation. Their mills dotted the banks of every stream whose current afforded sufficient motive power for the propulsion of a water-wheel. The products of their looms were famous for their exquisite patterns and the fineness of their texture. They seemed to have also excelled in the invention and manufacture of contrivances for the measurement of time. A clepsydra belonging to Roger II. has been commemorated by an inscription which would indicate that it equalled in ingenuity and perfection the famous one presented by Harun-al-Raschid to Charlemagne. The hours were marked off by automatons, which dropped a corresponding number of balls into a metallic basin, a not unworthy predecessor of the modern clock. A considerable number of the astrolabes, which, having fortunately escaped the effects of ecclesiastical fury wreaked upon them as magical instruments and devices of Satan, are now preserved in the museums of Europe, are of undoubted Sicilian origin.

Abu-Layth, an architect and engineer, who had been educated in the schools of Sicily, assisted in the completion of the great mosque of Seville, erected during the twelfth century, and the globes of gilded bronze which crowned the summit of the Giralda, whose extraordinary dimensions and perfect symmetry excited the wonder of all beholders, were cast and raised to their places under his supervision. The superiority of the Sicilian Moslems in the construction and management of military engines has been already referred to in these pages.

The court of Palermo for more than a century was no less distinguished for the literary acquirements of those who, attracted by its reputation and the character of its society, took up their abode in its precincts, than for the scientific studies pursued with such ardor under the patronage of its sovereigns. During the Saracen rule, translations of those classical authors who wrote on philosophy and natural history were made; the perusal of the works of Aristotle, for whose doctrines the Moslems of the Middle Ages evinced such a remarkable predilection, was one of the favorite diversions of the learned; and the poems of Pagan Arabia were recited in the elegant idiom of the Desert, amidst the applause of believer and infidel alike, almost within hearing of the metropolis of Christendom. The prodigious stores of learning accumulated by the philosophers of the Alexandrian school, through the boundless munificence of the Greek dynasty of Egypt, enriched the libraries and cultivated the understanding of the scholars of Sicily. The writings of Hero, of Eratosthenes, of Euclid, and of Ptolemy were familiar to the students in attendance upon the academies and colleges of Palermo and Messina. The Syntaxis, the Geography, and the Optics of the latter have survived, mainly through the instrumentality of the Moors, the indiscriminate destructiveness of the barbarians and the calculating malice of the clergy, to convey to subsequent generations instructive and significant ideas of the philosophical attainments and mathematical knowledge of one of the most accomplished scholars of antiquity. The great work of Edrisi was compiled under the auspices of Roger II. The Arab was peculiarly fitted for the treatment of the comprehensive science of physical and descriptive geography. His information had been largely obtained by practical experience. He had served in campaigns conducted on the frontiers of civilization; in the capacity of a merchant he had traversed with the plodding caravan vast regions diversified with illimitable plains, lofty mountains, noble rivers; as a pilgrim he had performed his devotions at the cradle of the Moslem faith; in the tireless pursuit of learning he had prosecuted his researches over strange countries and among strange peoples; his features and his costume were familiar to the residents of the great European and Asiatic capitals; his peregrinations had extended from the Douro to the Indus, from the shores of the Baltic to the sources of the Nile. Thus endowed with especial qualifications, the Arab geographer was equally at home, whether recounting to a delighted audience the experiences of an extended journey or explaining to an assemblage of students the physical features of the earth and the relative distribution of land and water as depicted on the surface of a terrestrial globe. The work of Edrisi is an imperishable monument to the intelligence, the industry, the criticism, of the compiler, whose studies were confirmed in many instances by personal observation, and the practical value of whose undertaking was established by his scientific attainments as well as by the copious erudition of the illustrious monarch by whose command it originated and was brought to a successful termination.

In the exact sciences the Arabs of Sicily attained to a proficiency unsurpassed by any nation since the glorious days of the Alexandrian Museum, and, in fact, they appropriated and absorbed much of the knowledge bequeathed to posterity by that immortal institution. Their geometers applied that knowledge to the improvement of hydraulic apparatus, to the increase in power and efficiency of military engines, to astronomical observations which facilitated the explorations of the navigator, to a thousand inventions which promoted the convenience and the happiness of domestic life. The leisure of the emirs and of the Norman princes was amused, and the literary ambition of their accomplished courtiers excited, by the recitations of famous bards, who, in a land which still cherished the memory of the incomparable poetic inspiration of Greece and Rome, competed for the applause of an audience in whose eyes ready improvisation and extravagant metaphors were infallible tokens of the highest excellence.

Of such a character were the material civilization, the scientific achievements, the intellectual culture of Moorish and Norman Sicily. Its glories have long since departed. Of the hundreds of palaces and mosques whose majestic and elegant proportions were the pride of the Moslem cities, not one has escaped the destructive touch of plebeian vandalism and ecclesiastical hatred. The Sicilian population, from being one of the most cultivated, has degenerated into the most ignorant of Catholic Europe. The suburbs of Palermo, once the abode of every science and of every art, are now so infested with brigands that they cannot be traversed in safety by the traveller without the protection of an armed guard. For the medical experience and skilful offices of the surgeon have been substituted arduous penance and the application of suspicious, often spurious relics. Intellectual liberty and religious toleration have been supplanted by the repression of thought, by the discouragement of every noble impulse, by the tyranny of a superstition which degrades the mind and enfeebles every aspiration which can promote the material welfare of humanity.

The enterprising spirit of the Arabs which induced them to extend their conquests to all accessible points on the Mediterranean early suggested the occupation of the largest islands of that sea, whose importance as naval stations whence invading armies might be transported into Europe, and as bases for the equipment of piratical undertakings, was fully recognized by every nation. The Balearic Isles were a dependency of the khalifate of Cordova. They paid tribute to its sovereigns like other provinces of the empire, furnished troops for its armies, participated largely in its civilization, and, fortunate in their isolation, survived for nearly two centuries its overthrow. Sardinia, invaded by Musa in the first years of the eighth century, was never completely subjugated by the Saracens. The mountainous and barren interior of that island, sparsely inhabited by a barbarous and poverty-stricken peasantry, repelled them from a conquest whose doubtful advantages could not possibly compensate for the toil and danger necessary to secure it, and the coast with its harbors seemed the only territory worthy of their attention. For the space of seventy years the Moors retained a precarious foothold on the shores of that island, and the possession of a few insignificant seaports was disputed by the Franks and Italians with a pertinacity not unworthy of a contest involving the fate of an extensive kingdom.

In 722 the Saracens, having become familiar with the extensive traffic in relics carried on by the Catholic clergy and determined to turn to their own profit the superstitious credulity of the devout, entered into negotiations with Liutprand, King of the Lombards, for the sale of the body of St. Augustine, which had reposed in peace for two hundred years in the metropolitan church of Cagliari. The transaction was betrayed by the arrival of the messengers of Liutprand, and the people, incited by the monks, rose in revolt. An unsuccessful attempt was made to rescue the ashes of the saint, the Arab garrison was called out to quell the tumult, and seven monks paid the extreme penalty of their zeal, and perhaps not wholly disinterested piety. In view of the precious character of these mementos and of the difficulties attending their transfer, the Arabs exacted, in addition to the price already agreed upon, the payment of three pounds of gold and twelve of silver; an amount which indicates the immense value of the original ransom. The grief of the devout inhabitants of Cagliari on account of their loss was somewhat alleviated by the remembrance that the vestments which had been torn from the bones of the saint in the struggle still remained in their hands, and the innumerable miracles wrought by these tattered garments, confirmed by the highest ecclesiastical authority, long attested the celestial influence and supernatural virtues possessed by the sacred relics of the deceased Bishop of Hippo.

Crete, captured by refugees from Spain, who, exiled from that country for treason during the reign of Al-Hakem I., were subsequently driven from Alexandria by the infuriated populace, whose hospitality they had abused, remained in the hands of the Moslems until 961, when it was reconquered by the Greeks. The Spanish Arabs about the year 806 descended upon the coast of Corsica. The timely aid of King Pepin prevented the immediate loss of that island, which, however, was occupied by the Saracens in 810. The despairing Corsicans, who had betaken themselves to the mountain solitudes, solicited the aid of Charlemagne, who sent a powerful fleet to their relief. The Moslems, after a series of sanguinary engagements, were absolutely exterminated by the ferocious warriors of the West; but the unfortunate Corsicans fared little better than their enemies, for it is stated by respectable authority that nine-tenths of the population perished within less than three years from the effects of the Saracen invasion. The shores of the island are still covered with ruins of extensive towns and cities dating from that period, indicating the former prosperity of the inhabitants, as well as the frightful calamities which they must have endured at the hands of the truculent adventurers of Spain and Africa.

Malta, acknowledged in the Middle Ages, as now, to be the key of the Eastern Mediterranean, was for two hundred and twenty years an important dependency of the Sicilian Emirate. Taken by the Moslems in 870, it was occupied by the Norman troops, led by Count Roger in person, in 1090. The subjects of the Greek Emperor were put to death or enslaved, but for the native Maltese the Arabs manifested an unusual partiality. Their lot was far more tolerable than that of the tributary Christians of Sicily, their religion was unmolested, their taxes were moderate, the privileges conceded to them more favorable than those ordinarily accorded to infidels. The inhabitants of all these islands, except Sicily, which made war upon an extensive scale, subsisted by piratical depredations and by trade in slaves, in which reprehensible practices the Moors of Malta early obtained an undisputed and infamous pre-eminence.

In this chapter has been traced an incomplete outline of the origin, progress, and decline of the Moslem domination in Sicily, a subject which, if elaborated, would embrace many volumes. From this imperfect sketch, however, the reader may form an idea of a civilization centuries in advance of that of any contemporaneous people, with the single exception of the Spanish Arabs; a civilization which, fostered and perpetuated under the brilliant reign of the Emperor Frederick II., effected such a memorable revolution in the ideas and opinions entertained as indisputably correct by the devout and the credulous of many preceding ages.