CHAPTER V.
THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG
THE CHRISTIANS OF SPAIN.
In 711 the
victorious Arabs introduced Islam into Spain: in 1502 an edict of Ferdinand and
Isabella forbade the exercise of the Muhammadan religion throughout the
kingdom. During the centuries that elapsed between these two dates; Muslim
Spain had written one of the brightest pages in the history of medieval Europe.
Her influence had passed through Provence into the other countries of Europe,
bringing into birth a new poetry and a new culture, and it was from her that
Christian scholars received what of Greek philosophy and science they had to
stimulate their mental activity up to the time of the Renaissance. But these
triumphs of the civilised life—art and poetry, science and philosophy—we must
pass over here and fix our attention on the religious condition of Spain under
the Muslim rule.
When the
Muhammadans first brought their religion into Spain they found Catholic
Christianity firmly established after its conquest over Arianism. The sixth
Council of Toledo had enacted that all kings were to swear that they would not
suffer the exercise of any other religion but the Catholic, and would
vigorously enforce the law against all dissentients, while a subsequent law
forbade any one under pain of confiscation of his property and perpetual
imprisonment, to call in question the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, the
Evangelical Institutions, the definitions of the Fathers, the decrees of the
Church, and the Holy Sacraments. The clergy had gained for their order a
preponderating influence in the affairs of the state;[1]
the bishops and chief ecclesiastics sat in the national councils, which met to
settle the most important business of the realm, ratified the election of the
king and claimed the right to depose him if he refused to abide by their
decrees. The Christian clergy took advantage of their power to persecute the
Jews, who formed a very large community in Spain; edicts of a brutally severe
character were passed against such as refused to be baptised;[2]
and they consequently hailed the invading Arabs as their deliverers from such
cruel oppression, they garrisoned the captured cities on behalf of the
conqueror and opened the gates of towns that were being besieged.[3]
The Muhammadans
received as warm a welcome from the slaves, whose condition under the Gothic
rule was a very miserable one, and whose knowledge of Christianity was too
superficial to have any weight when compared with the liberty and numerous
advantages they gained, by throwing in their lot with the Muslims.
These down-trodden
slaves were the first converts to Islam in Spain. The remnants of the heathen
population of which we find mention as late as A.D. 693,[4]
probably followed their example. Many of the Christian nobles, also, whether
from genuine conviction or from other motives, embraced the new creed.[5]
Many converts were won, too, from the lower and middle classes, who may well
have embraced Islam, not merely outwardly, but from genuine conviction, turning
to it from a religion whose ministers had left them ill-instructed and uncared
for, and busied with worldly ambitions had plundered and oppressed their
flocks.[6]
Having once become Muslims, these Spanish converts showed themselves zealous
adherents of their adopted faith, and they and their children joined themselves
to the Puritan party of the rigid Muhammadan theologians as against the
careless and luxurious life of the Arab aristocracy.[7]
At the time of the
Muhammadan conquest the old Gothic virtues are said by Christian historians to
have declined and given place to effeminacy and corruption, so that the
Muhammadan rule appeared to them to be a punishment sent from God on those who
had gone astray into the paths of vice;[8]
but such a statement is too frequent a commonplace of the ecclesiastical
historian to be accepted in the absence of contemporary evidence.[9]
But certainly as
time went on, matters do not seem to have mended themselves; and when Christian
bishops took part in the revels of the Muhammadan court, when episcopal sees
were put up to auction and persons suspected to be atheists appointed as
shepherds of the faithful, and these in their turn bestowed the office of the
priesthood on low and unworthy persons,[10]
we may well suppose that it was not only in the province of Elvira[11]
that Christians turned from a religion, the corrupt lives of whose ministers
had brought it into discredit,[12]
and sought a more congenial atmosphere for the moral and spiritual life in the
pale of Islam.
Had ecclesiastical
writers cared to chronicle them, Spain would doubtless be found to offer
instances of many a man leaving the Christian Church like Bodo, a deacon at the
French court in the reign of Louis the Pious, who in A.D. 838 became a Jew, in
order that (as he said), forsaking his sinful life, he might " abide
steadfast in the law of the Lord."[13]
It is very
possible, too, that the lingering remains of the old Gothic Arianism—of which,
indeed, there had been some slight revival in the Spanish Church just before
the Arab conquest[14]—may
have predisposed men's minds to accept the new faith whose Christology was in
such close agreement with Arian doctrine,[15]
and a later age may have witnessed parallels to that change of faith which is
the earliest recorded instance of conversion to Islam in western Europe and
occurred before the Arab invasion of Spain— namely the conversion of a Greek
named Theodisclus, who succeeded St. Isidore (ob. A.D. 636) as Archbishop of
Seville; he was accused of heresy, for maintaining that Jesus was not one God
in unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit, but was rather Son of God by
adoption; he was accordingly condemned by an ecclesiastical synod, deprived of
his archbishopric and degraded from the priesthood. Whereupon he went over to
the Arabs and embraced Islam among them.[16]
Of forced
conversion or anything like persecution in the early days of the Arab conquest,
we hear nothing. Indeed, it was probably in a great measure their tolerant
attitude towards the Christian religion that facilitated their rapid
acquisition of the country. The only complaint that the Christians could bring
against their new rulers for treating them differently to their non-Christian
subjects, was that they had to pay the usual capitation-tax of forty-eight
dirhams for the rich, twenty-four for the middle classes, and twelve for those
who made their living by manual labour : this, as being in lieu of military
service, was levied only on the able-bodied males, for women, children, monks,
the halt, and the blind, and the sick, mendicants and slaves were exempted
therefrom;[17]
it must moreover have appeared the less oppressive as being collected by the
Christian officials themselves.[18]
Except in the case
of offences against the Muslim religious law, the Christians were tried by
their own judges and in accordance with their own laws.[19]
They were left undisturbed in the exercise of their religion;[20]
the sacrifice of the mass was offered, with the swinging of censers, the
ringing of the bell, and all the other solemnities of the Catholic ritual; the
psalms were chanted in the choir, sermons preached to the people, and the
festivals of the Church observed in the usual manner. They do not appear to
have been condemned, like their co-religionists in Syria and Egypt, to wear a
distinctive dress as sign of their humiliation, and in the ninth century at
least, the Christian laity wore the same kind of costume as the Arabs.[21]
They were at one time even allowed to build new churches.[22]
We read also of
the founding[23]
of several fresh monasteries in addition to the numerous convents both for
monks and nuns that flourished undisturbed by the Muhammadan rulers. The monks
could appear publicly in the woollen robes of their order and the priest had no
need to conceal the mark of his sacred office,[24]
nor at the same time did their religious profession prevent the Christians from
being entrusted with high offices at court,[25]
or serving in the Muslim armies.[26]
Certainly those
Christians who could reconcile themselves to the loss of political power had
little to complain of, and it is very noticeable that during the whole of the
eighth century we hear of only one attempt at revolt on their part, namely at
Beja, and in this they appear to have followed the lead of an Arab chief.[27]
Those who migrated into French territory in order that they might live under a
Christian rule, certainly fared no better than the co-religionists they had
left behind. In 812 Charlemagne interfered to protect the exiles who had
followed him on his retreat from Spain from the exactions of the imperial
officers. Three years later Louis the Pious had to issue another edict on their
behalf, in spite of which they had soon again to complain against the nobles
who robbed them of the lands that had been assigned to them. But the evil was
only checked for a little time to break out afresh, and all the edicts passed
on their behalf did not avail to make the lot of these unfortunate exiles more
tolerable, and in the Cagots (i.e. canes Gothi), a despised and
ill-treated class of later times, we probably meet again the Spanish colony
that fled away from Muslim rule to throw themselves upon the mercy of their
Christian co-religionists.[28]
The toleration of
the Muhammadan government towards its Christian subjects in Spain and the
freedom of intercourse between the adherents of the two religions brought
about a certain amount of assimilation in the two communities. Inter-marriages
became frequent;[29]
Isidore of Beja, who fiercely inveighs against the Muslim conquerors, records the
marriage of 'Abd al-'Azīz, the son of Mūsā, with the widow of King Roderic,
without a word of blame.[30]
Many of the Christians adopted Arab names, and in outward observances imitated
to some extent their Muhammadan neighbours, e.g. many were circumcised,[31]
and in matters of food and drink followed the practice of the " unbaptized
pagans."[32]
The very term
Muzarabes (i.e. must'aribīn or Arabicised) applied to the Spanish Christians
living under Arab rule, is significant of the tendencies that were at work. The
study of Arabic very rapidly began to displace that of Latin throughout the
country,[33]
so that the language of Christian theology came gradually to be neglected and
forgotten. Even some of the higher clergy rendered themselves ridiculous by
their ignorance of correct Latinity.[34]
It could hardly be expected that the laity would exhibit more zeal in such a
matter than the clergy, and in 854 a Spanish writer brings the following
complaint against his Christian fellow-countrymen :—" While we are
investigating their (i. e. the Muslim) sacred ordinances and meeting together
to study the sects of their philosophers—or rather philo-braggers—not for the
purpose of refuting their errors, but for the exquisite charm and for the
eloquence and beauty of their language—neglecting the reading of the
Scriptures, we are but setting up as an idol the number of the beast. (Apoc.
xiii. 18.) Where nowadays can we find any learned layman who, absorbed in the
study of the Holy Scriptures, cares to look at the works of any of the Latin
Fathers? Who is there with any zeal for the writings of the Evangelists, or the
Prophets, or Apostles? Our Christian young men, with their elegant airs and
fluent speech, are showy in their dress and carriage, and are famed for the
learning of the gentiles; intoxicated with Arab eloquence they greedily handle,
eagerly devour and zealously discuss the books of the Chaldeans (i.e.
Muhammadans), and make them known by praising them with every flourish of
rhetoric, knowing nothing of the beauty of the Church's literature, and looking
down with contempt on the streams of the Church that flow forth from Paradise;
alas! the Christians are so ignorant of their own law, the Latins pay so little
attention to their own language, that in the whole Christian flock there is
hardly one man in a thousand who can write a letter to inquire after a friend's
health intelligibly, while you may find a countless rabble of all kinds of them
who can learnedly roll out the grandiloquent periods of the Chaldean tongue.
They can even make poems, every line ending with the same letter, which display
high flights of beauty and more skill in handling metre than the gentiles
themselves possess."[35]
In fact the
knowledge of Latin so much declined in one part of Spain that it was found necessary
to translate the ancient Canons of the Spanish Church and the Bible into Arabic
for the use of the Christians.[36]
While the
brilliant literature of the Arabs exercised such a fascination and was so
zealously studied, those who desired an education in Christian literature had
little more than the materials that had been employed in the training of the
barbaric Goths, and could with difficulty find teachers to induct them even
into this low level of culture. As time went on this want of Christian education
increased more and more. In 1125 the Muzarabes wrote to King Alfonso of Aragon
: " We and our fathers have up to this time been brought up among the
gentiles, and having been baptised, freely observe the Christian ordinances;
but we have never had it in our power to be fully instructed in our divine
religion; for, subject as we are to the infidels who have long oppressed us, we
have never ventured to ask for teachers from Rome or France; and they have
never come to us of their own accord on account of the barbarity of the heathen
whom we obey."[37]
From such close
intercourse with the Muslims and so diligent a study of their literature—when
we find even so bigoted an opponent of Islam as Alvar[38]
acknowledging that the Qur'ān was composed in such eloquent and beautiful
language that even Christians could not help reading and admiring it—we should
naturally expect to find signs of a religious influence: and such indeed is the
case. Elipandus, bishop of Toledo (ob. 810), an exponent of the heresy of
Adoptionism—according to which the Man Christ Jesus was Son of God by adoption
and not by nature—is expressly said to have arrived at these heretical views
through his frequent and close intercourse with the Muhammadans.[39]
This new doctrine appears to have spread quickly over a great part of Spain,
while it was successfully propagated in Septimania, which was under French
protection, by Felix, bishop of Urgel in Catalonia.[40]
Felix was brought before a council, presided over by Charlemagne, and made to
abjure his error, but on his return to Spain he relapsed into his old heresy,
doubtless (as was suggested by Pope Leo III at the time) owing to his
intercourse with the pagans (meaning thereby the Muhammadans) who held similar
views.[41]
When prominent churchmen were so profoundly influenced by their contact with
Muhammadans, we may judge that the influence of Islam upon the Christians of
Spain was very considerable, indeed in A.D. 936 a council was held at Toledo to
consider the best means of preventing this intercourse from contaminating the
purity of the Christian faith.[42]
It may readily be
understood how these influences of Islamic thought and practice—added to
definite efforts at conversion[43]—would
lead to much more than a mere approximation and would very speedily swell the
number of the converts to Islam so that their descendants, the so-called
Muwallads—a term denoting those not of Arab blood—soon formed a large and
important party in the state, indeed the majority of the population of the
country,[44]
and as early as the beginning of the ninth century we read of attempts made by
them to shake off the Arab rule, and on several occasions later they come
forward actively as a national party of Spanish Muslims.
We have little or
no details of the history of the conversion of these New-Muslims. Instances
appeared to have occurred right up to the last days of Muslim rule, for when
the army of Ferdinand and Isabella captured Malaga in 1487, it is recorded that
all the renegade Christians found in the city were tortured to death with
sharp-pointed reeds, and in the capitulation that secured the submission of
Purchena two years later, an express promise was made that renegades would not
be forced to return to Christianity.[45]
Some few apostatised to escape the payment of some penalty inflicted by the
law-courts.[46]
But the majority of the converts were no doubt won over by the imposing
influence of the faith of Islam itself, presented to them as it was with all
the glamour of a brilliant civilisation, having a poetry, a philosophy and an
art well calculated to attract the reason and dazzle the imagination : while in
the lofty chivalry of the Arabs there was free scope for the exhibition of
manly prowess and the knightly virtues—a career closed to the conquered
Spaniards that remained true to the Christian faith. Again, the learning and
literature of the Christians must have appeared very poor and meagre when
compared with that of the Muslims, the study of which may well by itself have
served as an incentive to the adoption of their religion. Besides, to the
devout mind Islam in Spain could offer the attractions of a pious and zealous
Puritan party with the orthodox Muslim theologians at its head, which at times
had a preponderating influence in the state and struggled earnestly towards a
reformation of faith and morals.
Taking into
consideration the ardent religious feeling that animated the mass of the
Spanish Muslims and the provocation that the Christians gave to the Muhammadan
government through their treacherous intrigues with their coreligionists over
the border, the history of Spain under Muhammadan rule is singularly free from
persecution.
With the exception of three or four cases
of genuine martyrdom, the only approach to anything like persecution during
the whole period of the Arab rule is to be found in the severe measures adopted
by the Muhammadan government to repress the madness for voluntary martyrdom
that broke out in Cordova in the ninth century. At this time a fanatical party
came into existence among the Christians in this part of Spain (for apparently
the Christian Church in the rest of the country had no sympathy with the
movement), which set itself openly and unprovokedly to insult the religion of
the Muslims and blaspheme their Prophet, with the deliberate intention of
incurring the penalty of death by such misguided assertion of their Christian
bigotry.
This strange
passion for self-immolation displayed itself mainly among priests, monks and
nuns between the years 850 and 860. It would seem that brooding, in the silence
of their cloisters, over the decline of Christian influence and the decay of
religious zeal, they went forth to win the martyr's crown—of which the
toleration of their infidel rulers was robbing them—by means of fierce attacks
on Islam and its founder. Thus, for example, a certain monk, by name Isaac,
came before the Qādī and pretended that he wished to be instructed in the faith
of Islam; when the Qādī had expounded to him the doctrines of the Prophet, he
burst out with the words: " He hath lied unto you (may the curse of God
consume him!), who, full of wickedness, hath led so many men into perdition,
and doomed them with himself to the pit of hell. Filled with Satan and practising
Satanic jugglery, he hath given you a cup of deadly wine to work disease in
you, and will expiate his guilt with everlasting damnation. Why do ye not,
being endowed with understanding, deliver yourselves from such dangers ? Why do
ye not, renouncing the ulcer of his pestilential doctrines, seek the eternal
salvation of the Gospel of the faith of Christ?"[47]
On another occasion two Christians forced their way into a mosque and there
reviled the Muhammadan religion, which, they declared, would very speedily
bring upon its followers the destruction of hell-fire.[48]
Though the number of such fanatics was not considerable,[49]
the Muhammadan government grew alarmed, fearing that such contempt for their
authority and disregard of their laws against blasphemy, argued a widespread
disaffection and a possible general insurrection, for in fact, in 853 Muhammad
I had to send an army against the Christians at Toledo, who, incited by
Eulogius, the chief apologist of the martyrs, had risen in revolt on the news
of the sufferings of their co-religionists.[50]
He is said to have ordered a general massacre of the Christians, but when it
was pointed out that no men of any intelligence or rank among the Christians
had taken part in such doings[51]
(for Alvar himself complains that the majority of the Christian priests
condemned the martyrs[52]),
the king contented himself with putting into force the existing laws against
blasphemy with the utmost rigour. The moderate party in the Church seconded the
efforts of the government; the bishops anathematised the fanatics, and an
ecclesiastical council that was held in 852 to discuss the matter agreed upon
methods of repression[53]
that eventually quashed the movement. One or two isolated cases of martyrdom
are recorded later—the last in 983, after which there was none as long as the
Arab rule lasted in Spain.[54]
But under the
Berber dynasty of the Almoravids at the beginning of the twelfth century, there
was an outburst of fanaticism on the part of the theological zealots of Islam
in which the Christians had to suffer along with the Jews and the liberal
section of the Muhammadan population—the philosophers, the poets and the men
of letters. But such incidents are exceptions to the generally tolerant
character of the Muhammadan rulers of Spain towards their Christian subjects.
One of the Spanish
Muhammadans who was driven out of his native country in the last expulsion of
the Moriscoes in 1610, while protesting against the persecutions of the
Inquisition, makes the following vindication of the toleration of his
co-religionists: " Did our victorious ancestors ever once attempt to
extirpate Christianity out of Spain, when it was in their power ? Did they not suffer your forefathers to
enjoy the free use of their rites at the same time that they wore their chains?
Is not the absolute injunction of our Prophet, that whatever nation is
conquered by Musalman steel, should, upon the payment of a moderate annual
tribute, be permitted to persevere in their own pristine persuasion, how absurd
soever, or to embrace what other belief they themselves best approved of ? If
there may have been some examples of forced conversions, they are so rare as
scarce to deserve mentioning, and only attempted by men who had not the fear of
God, and the Prophet, before their eyes, and who, in so doing, have acted
directly and diametrically contrary to the holy precepts and ordinances of
Islam which cannot, without sacrilege, be violated by any who would be held
worthy of the honourable epithet of Musulman. . . . You can never produce,
among us, any bloodthirsty, formal tribunal, on account of different persuasions
in points of faith, that anywise approaches your execrable Inquisition. Our
arms, it is true, are ever open to receive all who are disposed to embrace our
religion; but we are not allowed by our sacred Qur'ān to tyrannise over consciences. Our proselytes have all imaginable encouragement, and have no
sooner professed God's Unity and His Apostle's mission but they become one of
us, without reserve; taking to wife our daughters, and being employed in posts
of trust, honour and profit; we contenting ourselves with only obliging them to
wear our habit, and to seem true believers in outward appearance, without ever
offering to examine their consciences, provided they do not openly revile or
profane our religion : if they do that, we indeed punish them as they deserve;
since their conversion was voluntarily, and was not by compulsion."[55]
This very spirit
of toleration was made one of the main articles in an account of the
"Apostacies and Treasons of the Moriscoes," drawn up by the
Archbishop of Valencia in 1602 when recommending their expulsion to Philip III,
as follows : " That they commended nothing so much as that liberty of
conscience, in all matters of religion, which the Turks, and all other
Muhammadans, suffer their subjects to enjoy" [56]
What deep roots
Islam had struck in the hearts of the Spanish people may be judged from the
fact that when the last remnant of the Moriscoes was expelled from Spain in
1610, these unfortunate people still clung to the faith of their fathers,
although for more than a century they had been forced to outwardly conform to
the Christian religion, and in spite of the emigrations that had taken place
since the fall of Granada, nearly 500,000 are said to have been expelled at
that time.[57]
Whole towns and villages were deserted and the houses fell into ruins, there
being no one to rebuild them.[58]
These Moriscoes were probably all descendants of the original inhabitants of
the country, with little or no admixture of Arab blood; the reasons that may be
adduced in support of this statement are too lengthy to be given here; one
point only in the evidence may be mentioned, derived from a letter written in
1311, in which it is stated that of the 200,000 Muhammadans then living in the
city of Granada, not more than 500 were of Arab descent, all the rest being
descendants of converted Spaniards.[59]
Finally, it is of interest to note that even up to the last days of its power
in Spain, Islam won converts to the faith, for the historian, when writing of
events that occurred in the year 1499, seven years after the fall of Granada,
draws attention to the fact that among the Moors were a few Christians who had
lately embraced the faith of the Prophet.[60]
[1] Baudissin, p. 22.
[2] Helfferich, p. 68.
[3] Makkarī, vol. i. pp. 280-2.
[4] Baudissin, p. 7.
[5] Dozy (2), tome ii. pp. 45-6.
[6] A. Müller, vol. ii. p. 463.
[7] Dozy (2), tome ii. pp. 44-6.
[8] So St. Boniface (A.D. 745, Epist. lxii.). "Sicut aliis gentibus Hispaniæ et Provincæ et
Burgundionum populis contigit, quæ sic a Deo recedentes fornicatæ sunt, donec
index omnipotens talium criminum ultrices pœnas per ignorantiam legis Dei et
per Saracenos venire et sævire permisit." (Migne: Patr. Lat., tom. lxxxix.
p. 761.) Eulogius: lib. i. § 30. "In cuius (i.e. gentis Saracenicæ)
ditione nostro compellente facinore sceptrum Hispaniæ translatum est." (Migne: Patr. Lat., tom. cxv. p. 761.)
Similarly Alvar (2), § 18. "Et probare nostro vitio inlatum intentabo
flagellum. Nostra hæc, fratres, nostra desidia peperit mala, nostra impuritas,
nostra levitas, nostra morum obscœnitas . . . unde tradidit nos Dominus qui
iustitiam diligit, et cuius vultus æquitatem decernit, ipsi bestiæ conrodendos
" (pp. 531-2).
[9] Dozy (3), tome i. pp. 15-20. Whishaw, pp. 38, 44.
[10] Samson, pp. 377-8, 381.
[11] Dozy (2), tome ii. p. 210.
[12] Bishop Egila, who was sent to Southern Spain by Pope
Hadrian I, towards the end of the eighth century, on a mission to counteract
the growing influence of Muslim thought, denounces the Spanish priests who
lived in concubinage with married women.
(Helfferich, p. 83.)
[13]Alvari
Cordubensis, Epist. xix. "Ob meritum æternæ retributionis devovi me
sedulum in lege Domini consistere." (Migne: Patr. Lat., tom. cxxi. p. 512.)
[14] Helfferich, pp. 79-80.
[15]"Bedenkt
man nun, wie wichtig gerade die alttestamentliche Idee des Prophetenthums in
der Christologie des germanischen Arianismus nachklang und auch nach der
Annahme des katholischen Dogmas in dem religiösen Bewusstsein der Westgothen
haften blieb, so wird man es sehr erklärich finden, dass unmittelbar nach dem
Einfall der Araber die verwandten Vorstell-ungen des Mohammedanismus unter den
geknechteten Christen auftauchten."
(Helfferich, p. 82.)
[16] Lucæ Diaconi Tudensis Chronicon Mundi. (Andreas Schottus:
Hispaniæ Illustratæ, tom. iv. p. 53.) (Francofurti, 1603-8.)
[17] Dozy (2), tome ii. p. 41. Whishaw, p. 17.
[18] Dozy (2), tome ii. p. 39.
[20] Eulogius:
Mem. Sanct., lib. i. § 30, " inter ipsos sine molestia fidei degimus
" (p. 761). Id., ib., lib. i. § 18, " Quos nulla præsidialis
violentia fidem suam negare compulit, nec a cultu sanctæ piæque religionis
amovit " (p. 751). John of Gorz (who visited Spain about
the middle of the tenth century) § 124, " (Christiani), qui in regno eius
libere divinis suisque rebus utebantur."
A Spanish bishop thus described the condition of the
Christians to John of Gorz. "Peccatis ad hæc devoluti sumus, ut paganorum subiaceamus ditioni. Resistere
potestati verbo prohibemur apostoli. Tantum hoc unum relictum est solatii, quod in tantæ calamitatis malo
legibus nos propriis uti non prohibent; qui quos diligentes Christianitatis
viderint observatores, colunt et amplectuntur, simul ipsorum convictu
delectantur. Pro tempore igitur hoc videmur tenere consilii, ut quia religionis
nulla infertur iactura, cetera eis obsequamur, iussisque eorum in quantum fidem
non impediunt obtemperemus " § 122 (p. 302).
[21] Baudissin, pp. 16-17.
[22] Eulogius, ob. 859 (Mem. Sanct. lib. iii. c 3) speaks of
churches recently erected (ecclesias
nuper structas). The chronicle falsely
ascribed to Luitprand records the erection of a church at Cordova in 895 (p.
1113).
[23] Eulogius: Mem. Sanct., lib. iii. c. 11 (p. 812).
[24] Baudissin, p. 16.
[25] Id. p. 21, and John of Gorz, § 128 (p. 306).
[26] Whishaw, pp. 272, 301.
[27] Dozy (2), tome1 ii. p. 42.
[28] Baudissin, pp. 96-7.
[29] See the letter of Pope Hadrian I to the Spanish bishops
: ' Porro diversa capitula quæ ex illis audivimus partibus, id est, quod multi
dicentes se catholicos esse, communem vitam gerentes cum Iudæis et non
baptizatis paganis, tam in escis quamque in potu et in diversis erroribus nihil
pollui se inquiunt : et illud quod inhibitum est, ut nulli liceat iugum ducere
cum infidelibus, ipsi enim filias suas cum alio benedicent, et sic populo
gentili tradentur." (Migne : Patr. Lat., tome xcviii. p. 385.)
[30] Isidori Pacensis Chronicon, § 42 (p. 1266).
[31] Alvar: Indic. Lum., § 35 (p. 53). John of Gorz, § 123 (p. 303).
[32] Letter of Hadrian I, p. 385. John of Gorz, § 123 (p. 303).
[33] Some Arabic verses of a Christian poet of the eleventh
century are still extant, which exhibit considerable skill in handling the
language and metre. (Von Schack, II.
95.)
[34]
Abbot Samson gives us specimens of the bad Latin written by some of the
ecclesiastics of his time, e.g. "Cum contempti essemus simplicitas christiana,"
but his correction is hardly much better, " contenti essemus simplicitati
christianæ " (pp. 404, 406).
[35] Alvar: Indic. Lum., § 35 (pp. 554-6).
[36] Von Schack, vol. ii. p. 96.
[37] Orderic Vitalis, p. 928.
[38] Alvar: Ind.
Lum.. § 29. " Compositionem verborum, et preces omnium eius membrorum
quotidie pro eo eleganti facundia, et venusto confectas eloquio, nos hodie per
eorum volumina et oculis legimus et plerumque miramur." (Migne : Patr.
Lat., tome cxxi. p. 546.)
[41]"Postmodum transgressus legem Dei, fugiens
ad paganos consentaneos, periuratus effectus est." Frobenii dissertatio de hæresi Elipandi et
Felicis, § xxiv. (Migne : Patr. Lat.,
tome ci. p. 313.)
[42] Pseudo-Luitprandi Chronicon, § 341 (p.
1115). " Basilius Toletanum concilium contrahit; quo providetur, ne
Christiani detrimentum acciperent convictu Saracenorum."
[43] There is little
record of such, but they seem referred to in the following sentences of
Eulogius (Liber Apologeticus Martyrum, § 20), on Muḥammad : " Cuius
quidem erroris insaniam,
prædicationis deliramenta, et impiæ novitatis præcepta quisquis catholicorum
cognoscere cupit, evidentius ab eiusdem sectæ cultoribus perscrutando
advertet. Quoniam sacrum se
quidpiam tenere et credere autumantes, non modo privatis, sed apertis vocibus
vatis sui dogmata prædicant." (Migne :
Patr. Lat., tome cxv. p. 862.)
[44] Dozy (2), tome ii. p. 53.
[45] Lea, The
Moriscos, pp. 17, 18.
[46] Samson, p. 379.
[47] Eulogius : Mem. Sanct. Pref., § 2. (Migne, tom. cxv. p. 737.)
[48] Id. c. xiii. (p. 794).
[49] The number of the martyrs is said not to have exceeded
forty. (W. H. Prescott: History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. i.
p. 342, n.) (London 1846.)
[50] Dozy (2), tome ii. pp. 161-2.
[51] Eulogius : Mem. Sanct. I, iii. c. vii. (p. 805). "
Pro eo quod nullus sapiens, nemo urbanus, nullusque procerum Christianorum huiusce
modi rem perpetrasset, idcirco non debere universos perimere asserebant, quos
non præit personalis dux ad prælium."
[52] Alvar : Ind. Lum., § 14. " Nonne ipsi qui
videbantur columnæ, qui putabantur Ecclesiaæ petræ, qui credebantur electi,
nullo cogente, nemine provocante, iudicem adierunt, et in præsentia Cynicorum,
imo Epicureorum, Dei martyres infamaverunt ? Nonne pastores Christi, doctores Ecclesiæ, episcopi, abbates, presbyteri,
proceres et magnati, hæreticos eos esse publice clamaverunt ? et publica professione
sine desquisitione, absque interrogatione,
quæ nec imminente mortis sententia erant
dicenda, spontanea voluntate, et
libero mentis arbitrio, protulerunt ? " (Migne : tom. cxxi. p. 529.)
[53] Alvar: Indic. Lum., § 15. "Quid obtendendum est
de illis quos ecclesiastice interdiximus, et a quibus ne aliquando ad martyrii
surgerent palmam iuramentum extorsimus? quibus
errores gentilium infringere
vetuimus, et maledictum ne maledictionibus impeterent ? Evangelio et cruce
educta vi iurare improbiter fecimus, imo feraliter et belluino terrore
coegimus, minantes inaudita supplicia, et monstruosa promittentes truncationum
membrorum varia et horrenda dictu audituve flagella ?" (Migne: tom. cxxi. p. 530.)
[54] Baudissin, p. 199.
[55] Morgan, vol. ii. pp. 297-8, 345.
[56] Id. p. 310.
[57] Lea, The Moriscos, p. 259.
[58] Morgan, vol. ii. p. 337.
[59] Id. p. 289.
[60] Stirling-Maxwell, vol. i. p. 115.
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