Caliphs of the East was nearly nominal, and governors rose and fell with very little reference to their distant sovereign. The more sagacious among them probably fully understood the absurdity of Spain being a dependency of Syria; and the elevation of Abdalrahman may have been the result, not so much of any blind preference of Ommiads to Abbassides, as of a conviction that nature designed the Iberian peninsula to form an independent state. But at that early period of Mahometan history an independent Mahometan state could hardly be founded, except under the guise of a rival Caliphate. That Abdalrahman did establish himself as a direct rival to the Abbassides, and utterly disclaimed all authority on their part, seems fully established. The Abbassides made several attempts to recover their lost province, while Abdalrahman not only refused them all recognition in Spain, but threatened them with invasion in their own territories. Yet we read on the other hand that the early Ommiads only called themselves Emir, and that Abdalrahman the Third was the first1 who took the title of Commander of the Faithful, giving as a reason that in his day the Bagdad Caliph had become a mere puppet in the hands of the Turks.2 I find this in D'Herbelot and all my other authorities. Yet I find also that D'Herbelot applies without scruple the title of Caliph to their predecessors. And undoubtedly nothing is more certain than that the Ommiads of Cordova were in every sense a rival dynasty to the Abbassides of Bagdad.

The race of Moawiyah seem to have decidedly improved by their migration westward. The Caliphs

1 See D'Herbelot. Art. Abdalrahman.

2 Murphy's Mahometan Empire in Spain, p. 96. Cf. Condé, i. 365, 368, Eng. Trans.

CHARACTER OF THE SPANISH OMMIADS. 137

of Spain must be allowed one of the highest places among Mahometan dynasties. In the duration of their house and in the abundance of able princes which it produced, they yield only to the Ottoman Sultans, while they rise incomparably above them in every estimable quality. A fai-neant on the one hand, a brutal tyrant on the other are characters which are found but rarely among them. Of course no oriental dynasty ever existed so long without the commission of some great crimes; but they are neither so great nor so numerous as in most other despotic lines. Family feuds often occur, but they are less sanguinary than usual; and the very existence of family feuds shows that a dynasty has not attained to the climax of wickedness. The accession of a Spanish Caliph was not marked, like that of an Ottoman Sultan, by the massacre of his brethren; they had not even reached that milder form of Persian cruelty which condemned superfluous princes to loss of sight. Nor do the Ommiad princes appear to have spent their early days immured in a harem, only to make their first acquaintance with the world when invested with absolute power. On the whole, the Caliphs of Cordova may, when judged by an eastern standard, be fairly set down as a worthy line of princes. If the first Alhakem was a gloomy and cruel tyrant, his crimes were atoned for by the virtues of the second, a wise and humane prince, whose efforts to preserve peace in an age of bloodshed drew upon him no small obloquy from his subjects, who thirsted for the slaughter of the Infidel.

The condition of the Christians under the sway of these Caliphs does not seem to have been specially intolerable. The condition of a subject race and creed is necessarily a galling one, and occasional persecu

tions are spoken of.

The most famous of these was that which produced the "martyrs of Cordova," in the reign of Abdalrahman II. We must sympathize with any victim of religious persecution, especially with Christian victims of infidel persecution; but undoubtedly the martyrs in this case incurred their fate by indiscreet violation of the standing law of all Mahometan countries, which forbids any public speaking against the Mahometan religion. Cruel as such a law is, its regular and legal application must not be confounded with irregular and unprovoked violence. As a general rule, the Christian subjects of the Spanish as well as the Abbasside Caliphate were far better off than the victims of Seljukian or Ottoman tyranny. Mariana, a safe witness on this point, allows that the condition of the Christians was much aggravated by the immigration of the African Almohades, just as it was in the east by that of the Seljuk Turks. The Christians subject to tribute were allowed to be judged after their own laws by magistrates of their own.

But there were other Christians who disdained subjection even to the comparatively light yoke of the Saracen, just as in later times men have been found permanently to defy the tremendous powers of the house of Othman. What the mountains of Czernagora are to the Servian, what those of Souli were to the Greek, such were the fastnesses of Asturias to the Christian Spaniard. Only in those days diplomacy was unknown, and nations were allowed to grow up undisturbed by foreign interference. The freebooters of Montenegro are scouted as brigands and rebels, while those of Spain grew up into the famous kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal. In a rude age the difference between the robber and the patriot

RESISTANCE OF THE CHRISTIANS.

139

is not always very clearly drawn; Hereward, the hero of England, and Wallace, the hero of Scotland, appear in hostile chronicles under the less honourable designation. The Vladika is a chief of brigands in the eyes of polished diplomatists ; he is a patriotic prince in the eyes of his own people. Men of the like stamp were they who retired into the fastnesses of northern Spain, and who, in the course of eight centuries, won back the whole peninsula from the grasp of the misbelievers. A small mountainous region in the Asturias never submitted at all, and, during the civil wars which preceded the coming of Abdalrahman, the small province thus preserved by Pelayo grew into the germs of a kingdom called at different times that of Gallicia, Oviedo, and Leon. A constant border warfare fluctuated both ways, but on the whole to the advantage of the Christians. Meanwhile to the east other small states were growing up which developed into the kingdom of Navarre and the more important realm of Aragon. Castile and Portugal, the most famous among the Spanish kingdoms, are the most recent in date. Portugal as yet was unheard of, and Castile was known only as a line of castles on the march between the Saracens and the kingdom of Leon.

The most splendid period of the Saracen empire in Spain was during the tenth century. The great Caliph Abdalrahman Annasir Ledinallah raised the magnificence of the Cordovan monarchy to its highest pitch. But even during his reign, while he was overcoming rebels in Spain, and spreading his influence over Africa, the valiant mountaineers still held their ground and advanced. Even against this mighty potentate Ramiro of Leon could appear on equal terms in what was at least a drawn battle at Alchandik or

the Fosse of Zamora. This was in 936, a few years previously to the great revival of the Christian power against the Saracens of the East.

Abdalrahman was succeeded in 961 by his son Alhakem. This good prince was satisfied with one campaign in the north, and religiously observed the truce by which it was followed. The rest of his reign was devoted, as far as might be, to the promotion of the arts of peace. His son Hashem came to the throne as a child, and remained a child all his days. But his famous Hagib or Vizier, Mahomet Almansor, was one of the greatest of Moslem rulers, and was the most terrible foe the Spanish Christians had seen since the days of Tarik. He penetrated to the farthest corners of the peninsula, and sacked the famous shrine of Compostella, the Christian Mecca of Spain. He was mortally wounded in battle at Calat Anosor, and with him died the greatness of the Spanish Caliphate. The last thirty years of the Ommiad dynasty are a mere wearisome series of usurpations and civil wars. In 1031 the line became extinct, and the Ommiad empire was cut up into numerous petty states. From this moment the Christians advance, no more to retreat, and the cause of Islam is only sustained by repeated African immigrations.

This brings us to our second period. The extinction of the house of Moawiyah was accompanied by cruel wars between the different pretenders to the crown, during which the power of the central authority was utterly destroyed. When the hereditary position of the Ommiads and the sanctity of the Caliphate were lost, the new Kings of Cordova found it impossible to retain any power beyond their own province. Gehwar, who succeeded to the throne of