The Moors in Spain Part 6

The Cid's proper name was Rodrigo Diaz of Bivar, and he was called the _Cid_ because that was the t.i.tle which his Moorish followers naturally gave him. A Mohammedan gentleman is still addressed in Egypt and elsewhere by the t.i.tle _Sid_, which is a corruption of the word _Seyyid_, meaning "master." The Cid, or "master," was also styled _Campeador_, which signifies "champion," or, more accurately, "challenger," because his exceeding prowess made him the natural challenger in those single combats which in Spanish wars commonly preceded a general engagement between two armies. A famous warrior would advance before the ranks, as Goliath of Gath stood forth before the armies of Israel, and challenge the opposing forces to send him out a champion; and none was more renowned for his triumphs in this manner of warfare than Rodrigo Diaz, "myo Cid el Campeador," as the old chronicler affectionately calls him. It is not easy to decide how much of the splendid history which has gathered round the exploits of the Cid is true. The Christian chroniclers stopped at nothing when they began to describe their national hero; and the enthusiasm that did not shrink from relating how the King of Leon seized Paris, and conquered the French, Germans, Italians, and even the Persians, can be trusted still less when it sounds the glories of the beloved Cid. The Spanish ballads surround their hero with a saintly aureole of all the virtues, and forget that many of these virtues would not have been understood or appreciated by the Cid himself or his contemporaries in Castile. The Arabic writers are generally more trustworthy, but their judgment can hardly have been unbia.s.sed when they spoke of a Christian who worked such misery to the Moslems of Valencia as did the famous Campeador. Yet even they call him a "miracle of G.o.d."

In this critical age we are frequently obliged to abandon with regret the most charming traditions of our childhood's histories; and the Cid has not been spared. A special book has been written by an eminent Orientalist to prove that the redoubtable Challenger was by no means the hero he was supposed to be; that he was treacherous and cruel, a violator of altars, and a breaker of his own good faith. Professor Dozy maintains that the romantic history of the Cid is a tissue of inventions, and he has written an account of "the real Cid" to counteract these misleading narratives. He founds his criticisms mainly on the Arabic historians, in whom, despite their national and religious bias, he places as blind a reliance as less learned people have placed in the _Chronicle of the Cid_. Yet it is surprising how trifling are the differences that can be detected between his "real Cid" and that romantic _Chronicle of the Cid_, the substance of which was compiled by Alfonso the Learned only half a century after the Cid's death, and which Robert Southey translated into English in 1805 with such skill and charm of style that his version has ever since been almost as much a cla.s.sic as the original. Every one can separate for himself the obviously legendary incidents in the delightful old _Chronicle_ without any a.s.sistance from the Arabic historians, who deal chiefly with one period alone of the Cid's career; and the best popular account of the hero, in discriminating hands and with due allowances, is still Southey's fascinating _Chronicle_. The Cid of the _Chronicle_ is not at all the same as the Cid of the Romances; and while we cheerfully abandon the latter immaculate personage, we may still believe in the former. Of course our Cid had his faults, and was guilty of not a few thoroughly indefensible acts. He was no very orthodox champion of the faith, for he fought as well for the Moors as for the Christians, and would as dispa.s.sionately rob a church as a mosque. But all this is clear enough to any one who reads the _Chronicle_, and it does not make the Cid anything but what he always was--a hero of the rude days of yore. If we are to limit our definition of heroism to characters that display all Christian virtues, long-suffering, gentleness, and pity, we shall have to dismiss most of our old friends. Achilles was not very gentle or compa.s.sionate when he dragged the body of Hector round the walls of Troy: but Achilles is the hero of the Iliad. Nine out of ten of the heroes of antiquity committed a host of acts which we moderns, with our superfine sensibilities, call cruel, ungenerous, even dastardly. It is a pure perversion of history to apply latter-day codes of morality to the heroes of bygone ages. Let us admit that they are not all gold; and then let us delight in their great deeds, the mighty swing of their sword-arm, the crushing shock of their onset, their tall stature and flashing eyes as they ride to meet their foes. We do not expect them to be philosophers or strict advocates of the theories of political economy. We are quite satisfied with them as they are: heroes,--brave, gallant leaders of men.

The Cid was a real hero to the Spaniards: first, because he fought so magnificently, and that used once to be t.i.tle enough to reverence; secondly, because, like the mythical Bernardo del Carpio and the real Fernando Gonzalez, he was the champion of Castile, and had bearded the King of Leon, and thus represented the immemorial jealousy which the Castilians entertained for the powerful neighbours who absorbed their province; and thirdly, because the minstrels forgot his long alliance with the Moors, or contrived to give it a disinterested aspect, and remembered him only as the great champion of the Christian people against the infidels. But the very cause which specially commended him to the Castilians, his insubordination to King Alfonso, made him a less perfect hero to the writer of the _Cronica General_, from which the _Chronicle of the Cid_ was extracted. That writer or compiler, Alfonso the Learned, King of Leon and Castile, could not approve the haughty independence of the Cid towards his own forerunner the sixth Alfonso.

Hence in Southey's version of the _Chronicle_ (which is enriched with many extracts from the _Poem of the Cid_ and other sources) we have a check upon the excessive adulation of the ballads and romances. There is no lack of details in the work which are anything but creditable to the Cid; but, nevertheless, the true heroic character, with all its faults and limitations, is well sustained, and the record forms a wonderfully interesting picture of a stirring time and the greatest figure among the Spanish chevaliers.

The story of the Cid would fill a volume by itself; all we can attempt here is to extract a few of the most striking pa.s.sages of the _Chronicle_. The youth of the hero is, to a large extent, merged in myth; he first comes into historical doc.u.ments in 1064, when, though scarcely more than twenty, he had already won his t.i.tle of Challenger by a triumphant single combat with a knight of Navarre, and was soon afterwards appointed commander-in-chief of the forces of Castile. He helped Sancho of Castile to overcome his brother Alfonso of Leon, by a surprise which savoured strongly of treachery, but which pa.s.sed for good strategy in those rough-and-ready times. After the murder of Sancho by Bellido, under the walls of Zamora, the Cid pa.s.sed into the service of his successor, the very Alfonso whom he had before driven into exile.

The king at first welcomed the invincible knight of Castile to his court, and married him to his own cousin; but jealous rivals poisoned his mind, already filled with the memory of past wrongs, against Rodrigo (or Ruy Diez, as he is styled in the _Chronicle_), and in 1081 the Cid was banished from his dominions. The _Chronicle_ must tell the story of his farewells:

"And the Cid sent for all his friends and his kinsmen and va.s.sals, and told them how King Don Alfonso had banished him from the land, and asked of them who would follow him into banishment, and who would remain at home. Then Alvar Fanez, who was his cousin-german, came forward and said, Cid, we will all go with you, through desert and through peopled country, and never fail you. In your service will we spend our mules and horses, our wealth and our garments, and ever while we live be unto you loyal friends and va.s.sals. And they all confirmed what Alvar Fanez had said; and the Cid thanked them for their love, and said that there might come a time in which he should guerdon them.

"And as he was about to depart he looked back upon his own home, and when he saw his hall deserted the household chests unfastened the doors open, no cloaks hanging up, no seats in the porch, no hawks upon the perches, the tears came into his eyes, and he said, My enemies have done this.... G.o.d be praised for all things. And he turned toward the East and knelt and said, Holy Mary Mother, and all Saints, pray to G.o.d for me, that He may give me strength to destroy all the Pagans, and to win enough from them to requite my friends therewith, and all those who follow and help me. Then he called for Alvar Fanez and said unto him, Cousin, the poor have no part in the wrong which the king hath done us; see now that no wrong be done unto them along our road; and he called for his horse. And then an old woman who was standing at her door said, Go in a lucky minute, and make spoil of whatever you wish, And with this proverb he rode on, saying, Friends, by G.o.d's good pleasure we shall return to Castile with great honour and great gain. And as they went out from Bivar they had a crow on their right hand, and when they came to Burgos they had a crow on the left.

"My Cid Ruydiez entered Burgos, having sixty streamers in his company.

And men and women went forth to see him, and the men of Burgos and the women of Burgos were at their windows, weeping, so great was their sorrow; and they said with one accord, _Dios!_ how good a va.s.sal if he had but a good lord! must be scanno?] and willingly would each have bade him come in, but no one dared so to do. For King Don Alfonso in his anger had sent letters to Burgos, saying that no man should give the Cid a lodging; and that whosoever disobeyed should lose all that he had, and moreover the eyes in his head. Great sorrow had these Christian folk at this, and they hid themselves when he came near them because they did not dare speak to him; and my Cid went to his Posada, and when he came to the door he found it fastened for fear of the king. And his people called out with a loud voice, but they within made no answer. And the Cid rode up to the door, and took his foot out of the stirrup, and gave it a kick, but the door did not open with it, for it was well secured; a little girl of nine years old then came out of one of the houses and said unto him, O Cid, the king hath forbidden us to receive you. We dare not open our doors to you, for we should lose our houses and all that we have, and the eyes in our head. Cid, our evil would not help you, but G.o.d and all His saints be with you. And when she had said this she returned into the house. And when the Cid knew what the king had done he turned away from the door and rode up to St. Mary's, and there he alighted and knelt down, and prayed with all his heart; and then he mounted again and rode out of the town, and pitched his tent near Arlanzon, upon the Glera, that is to say, upon the sands. My Cid Ruydiez, he who in a happy hour first girt on his sword, took up his lodging upon the sands, because there was none who would receive him within his door. He had a good company round about him, and there he lodged as if he had been among the mountains....

"The c.o.c.ks were crowing amain, and the day began to break, when the good Campeador reached St. Pedro's. The Abbot Don Sisebuto was saying matins, and Dona Ximena (the Cid's wife) and five of her ladies of good lineage were with him, praying to G.o.d and St. Peter to help my Cid. And when he called at the gate and they knew his voice, _Dios!_ what a joyful man was the Abbot Don Sisebuto! Out into the courtyard they went with torches and with tapers, and the Abbot gave thanks to G.o.d that he now beheld the face of my Cid. And the Cid told him all that had befallen him, and how he was a banished man; and he gave him fifty marks for himself, and a hundred for Dona Ximena and her children. Abbot, said he, I leave two little girls behind me, whom I commend to your care. Take you care of them and of my wife and of her ladies: when this money be gone, if it be not enough, supply them abundantly; for every mark which you expend upon them I will give the monastery four. And the Abbot promised to do this with a right good will. Then Dona Ximena came up, and her daughters with her, each of them borne in arms, and she knelt down on both her knees before her husband, weeping bitterly, and she would have kissed his hand; and she said to him, Lo, now you are banished from the land by mischief-making men, and here am I with your daughters, who are little ones and of tender years, and we and you must be parted, even in your life-time. For the love of St. Mary tell me now what we shall do. And the Cid took the children in his arms, and held them to his heart and wept, for he dearly loved them. Please G.o.d and St.

Mary, said he, I shall yet live to give these my daughters in marriage with my own hands, and to do you service yet, my honoured wife, whom I have ever loved even as my own soul.

"A great feast did they make that day in the monastery for the good Campeador, and the bells of St. Pedro's rung merrily. Meantime the tidings had gone through Castile how my Cid was banished from the land, and great was the sorrow of the people. Some left their houses to follow him, others forsook their honourable offices which they held. And that day a hundred and fifteen knights a.s.sembled at the bridge of Arlanzon, all in quest of my Cid; and there Martin Antolinez joined them, and they rode on together to St. Pedro's. And when he of Bivar knew what a goodly company were coming to join him, he rejoiced in his own strength, and rode out to meet them and greeted them full courteously; and they kissed his hand, and he said to them, I pray to G.o.d that I may one day requite ye well, because ye have forsaken your houses and your heritages for my sake, and I trust that I shall pay ye twofold. Six days of the term allotted were now gone, and three only remained: if after that time he should be found within the king's dominions, neither for gold nor for silver could he then escape. That day they feasted together, and when it was evening the Cid distributed among them all that he had, giving to each man according to what he was; and he told them that they must meet at ma.s.s after matins, and depart at that early hour. Before the c.o.c.k crew they were ready, and the Abbot said the ma.s.s of the Holy Trinity, and when it was done they left the church and went to horse. And my Cid embraced Dona Ximena and his daughters, and blessed them; and the parting between them was like separating the nail from the quick flesh: and he wept and continued to look round after them. Then Alvar Fanez came up to him and said, Where is your courage, my Cid? In a good hour were you born of woman. Think of our road now; these sorrows will yet be turned into joy."

The Cid offered his services to the Moorish King of Zaragoza, the most powerful of the northern Moslem princes; and they were joyfully accepted. At the head of his own followers, who were the more devoted to him since they lived by the booty he procured them, he made a raid through Aragon, and so rapid was his riding that he harried a vast tract of country in five days, and was off before the Christians could sound the alarm. He led the Moors against the Count of Barcelona, won a signal victory, and made the Count his ally. How the Cid and his merry men triumphed in the battle-field, let the _Chronicle_ again relate:

"Pero Bermudez could not bear this, but holding the banner in his hand, he cried, G.o.d help you, Cid Campeador; I shall put your banner in the middle of that main body; and you who are bound to stand by it--I shall see how you will succour it. And he began to p.r.i.c.k forward. And the Campeador called unto him to stop as he loved him, but Pero Bermudez replied he would stop for nothing, and away he spurred and carried his banner into the middle of the great body of the Moors. And the Moors fell upon him that they might win the banner, and beset him on all sides, giving him many and great blows to beat him down; nevertheless, his arms were proof, and they could not pierce them, neither could they beat him down, nor force the banner from him, for he was a right brave man and a strong and a good horseman, and of great heart. And when the Cid saw him thus beset, he called to his people to move on and help him.

Then placed they their shields before their hearts, and lowered their lances with the streamers thereon, and, bending forward, rode on. Three hundred lances were they, each with its pendant, and every man at the first charge slew his Moor. Smite them, knights, for the love of charity! cried the Campeador. I am Ruydiez, the Cid of Bivar! Many a shield was pierced that day, and many a false corselet was broken, and many a white streamer dyed with blood, and many a horse left without a rider. The misbelievers called on Mahomet, and the Christians on Santiago, and the noise of the tambours and of the trumpets was so great that none could hear his neighbour. And my Cid and his company succoured Pero Bermudez, and they rode through the host of the Moors, slaying as they went, and they rode back again in like manner; thirteen hundred did they kill in this guise. If you would know who they were, who were the good men of that day, it behoves me to tell you, for though they are departed, it is not fitting that the names of those who have done well should die, nor would they who have done well themselves, or who hope so to do, think it right; for good men would not be so bound to do well if their good feats should be kept silent. There was my Cid, the good man in battle, who fought well upon his gilt saddle; and Alvar Fanez Minaya, and Martin Antolinez the Burgalese of prowess, and Muno Gustios, and Martin Munoz who held Montemayor, and Alvar Alvarez, and Alvar Salvadores, and Galin Garcia the good one of Aragon, and Felez Munoz the nephew of the Campeador. Wherever my Cid went, the Moors made a path before him, for he smote them down without mercy. And while the battle still continued, the Moors killed the horse of Alvar Fanez, and his lance was broken, and he fought bravely with his sword afoot. And my Cid, seeing him, came up to an Alguazil, who rode upon a good horse, and smote him with his sword under the right arm, so that he cut him through and through, and he gave the horse to Alvar Fanez, saying, Mount Minaya, for you are my right hand."

[Ill.u.s.tration: GATE OF SERRANO, VALENCIA.]

The great feat of the Cid's career was the conquest of Valencia. By force of political troubles he came to occupy the position of protector of the Moorish King of Valencia in the name of the King of Zaragoza. His first entry was peaceful and unopposed:

"Then the Cid went to Valencia, and King Yahya received him full honourably, and made a covenant with him to give him weekly four thousand maravedis of silver, and he on his part was to reduce the castles to his obedience, so that they should pay the same rents unto him as had been paid unto the former kings of Valencia; and that the Cid should protect him against all men, Moors or Christians, and should have his home in Valencia, and bring all his booty there to be sold, and that he should have his granaries there. This covenant was confirmed in writing, so that they were secure on one side and on the other. And my Cid sent to all those who held the castles, commanding them to pay their rents to the King of Valencia as they had done aforetime, and they all obeyed his command, every one striving to have his love."

From the vantage post of Valencia the Cid carried his triumphant arms against the neighbouring kingdoms. He "warred against Denia and against Xativa, and abode there all the winter, doing great hurt, insomuch that there did not remain a wall standing from Orihuela to Xativa, for he laid everything waste, and all his booty and his prisoners he sold in Valencia." On one of these expeditions, however, he lost his capital for a while. Alfonso, in 1089, has received him back to favour, given him castles, and decreed that all the Cid's conquests should be his own property. In other words, he recognized the Cid as an almost independent prince. Almost immediately, however, the king became again suspicious of his powerful va.s.sal, and seized the opportunity of the Cid's absence in the north to besiege his peculiar possession, the city of Valencia. When the Campeador heard this he was very wroth, and, by way of retaliation, carried fire and sword through Alfonso's districts of Najera and Calahorra, razed Logrono to the ground, and, in the words of the old Latin _Gesta_, "with terrible and impious despoilment he wasted and harried the land, and stripped it bare of its riches and seized them for himself." Alfonso hastily abandoned the siege of Valencia, and returned to defend his own country. But the Cid, having effected his purpose, came back another way, and found the gates of Valencia closed against him.

Then began that memorable siege of nine months, during which the people of Valencia suffered agonies of hunger and thirst, while the Cid maintained his remorseless leaguer round the walls. The besieged were reduced to the agonies of starvation, and those who rushed out, or were thrust forth as useless burdens by the townspeople, were ma.s.sacred or sold into slavery by the Cid's soldiers. It is even said by the Moorish historians that the Cid had many of them burnt alive. The _Chronicle_ pathetically records: "Now there was no food to be bought in the city, and the people were in the waves of death; and men were seen to drop and die in the streets." Thus wrote a poet of the devoted city:

"Valencia! Valencia! trouble is come upon thee, and thou art in the hour of death; and if peradventure thou shouldst escape, it will be a wonder to all that shall behold thee.

"But if ever G.o.d hath shown mercy to any place, let Him be pleased to show mercy unto thee; for thy name was joy, and all Moors delighted in thee and took their pleasure in thee.

"And if it should please G.o.d utterly to destroy thee now, it will be for thy great sins, and for the great presumption which thou hadst in thy pride.

"The four corner stones whereon thou art founded would meet together and lament for thee, if they could!

"Thy strong wall which is founded upon these four stones trembles, and is about to fall, and hath lost all its strength.

"Thy lofty and fair towers which were seen from far, and rejoiced the hearts of the people, ... little by little they are falling.

"Thy white battlements which glittered afar off, have lost their truth with which they shone like the sunbeams.

"Thy n.o.ble river Guadalaviar, with all the other waters with which thou hast been served so well, have left their channel, and now they run where they should not.

"Thy water-courses, which were so clear and of such great profit to so many, for lack of cleansing are choked with mud.

"Thy pleasant gardens which were round about thee; ... the ravenous wolf hath gnawn at the roots, and the trees can yield thee no fruit.

"Thy goodly fields, with so many and such fair flowers, wherein thy people were wont to take their pastime, are all dried up.

"Thy n.o.ble harbour, which was so great honour to thee, is deprived of all the n.o.bleness which was wont to come into it for thy sake.

"The fire hath laid waste the lands of which thou wert called Mistress, and the great smoke thereof reacheth thee.

"There is no medicine for thy sore infirmity, and the physicians despair of healing thee.

"Valencia! Valencia! from a broken heart have I uttered all these things which I have said of thee.

"And this grief would I keep unto myself that none should know it, if it were not needful that it should be known to all."

At last, in June, 1094, Valencia surrendered, and the Cid stood once more upon her towers and ramparts. He made hard conditions with the people, many of whom he sent away to the suburbs to make room for his Castilians. But if he was harsh and not quite honest in his dealings with the vanquished, his triumph was stained by no wholesale butchery.

The people were sometimes ruined; but their lives, except their leader's, were safe. The Cid had now attained the summit of his power.

He sent for his wife and daughters from the abbey, and established himself permanently as King of Valencia and suzerain of the country round about. The King of Aragon besought his alliance. He exacted heavy tribute from his neighbours; his revenue included 120,000 pieces of gold yearly from Valencia, 10,000 from the lord of Albarracin, 10,000 from the heir of Alpuente, 6,000 from the Master of Murviedro, and so forth.

He dreamed of reconquering all Andalusia. "One Roderick," he said, "lost Spain; another shall recover it." When the Almoravides came against him, he put them to rout. The _Chronicle_ tells the story:

"Day is gone, and night is come. At c.o.c.k-crow they all a.s.sembled together in the Church of St. Pedro, and the Bishop Don Hieronymo sang ma.s.s, and they were shriven and a.s.soyled and howselled. Great was the absolution which the bishop gave them: He who shall die, said he, fighting face forward, I will take his sins, and G.o.d shall have his soul. Then said he, A boon, Cid Don Rodrigo; I have sung ma.s.s to you this morning: let me have the giving the first wounds in this battle and the Cid granted him this boon in the name of G.o.d. Then, being all ready, they went out through the gate which is called the Gate of the Snake, for the greatest power of the Moors was on that side, leaving good men to guard the gates. Alvar Fanez and his company were already gone forth, and had laid their ambush. Four thousand, lacking thirty, were they who went out with my Cid, with a good will, to attack fifty thousand. They went through all the narrow places and bad pa.s.ses, and, leaving the ambush on the left, struck to the right hand, so as to get the Moors between them and the town. And the Cid put his battles in good array, and bade Pero Bermudez bear his banner. When the Moors saw this they were greatly amazed; and they harnessed themselves in great haste, and came out of their tents. Then the Cid bade his banner move on, and the Bishop Don Hieronymo p.r.i.c.ked forward with his company, and laid on with such guise, that the hosts were soon mingled together. Then might you have seen many a horse running about the field with the saddle under his belly, and many a horseman in evil plight upon the ground. Great was the smiting and slaying in short time; but by reason that the Moors were so great a number, they bore hard upon the Christians, and were in the hour of overcoming them. And the Cid began to encourage them with a loud voice, shouting G.o.d and Santiago! And Alvar Fanez at this time issued out from ambush, and fell upon them, on the side which was nearest the sea; and the Moors thought that a great power had arrived to the Cid's succour, and they were dismayed, and began to fly. And the Cid and his people pursued, punishing them in a bad way. If we should wish to tell you how every one behaved himself in this battle, it is a thing which could not be done, for all did so well that no man can relate their feats. And the Cid Ruydiez did so well, and made such mortality among the Moors, that the blood ran from his wrist to his elbow! Great pleasure had he in his horse Bavieca that day, to find himself so well mounted. And in the pursuit he came up to King Yusuf, and smote him three times; but the king escaped from under the sword, for the horse of the Cid pa.s.sed on in his course, and when he turned, the king being on a fleet horse, was far off, so that he might not be overtaken; and he got into a castle called Guyera, for so far did the Christians pursue them, smiting and slaying, and giving them no respite, so that hardly fifteen thousand escaped of fifty that they were."

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOMB OF THE CID AT SAN PEDRO DE CARDEnA.]

But the fortune of war is fickle. The troops of the Cid were defeated at last by the invaders; and the Campeador died of grief in July, 1099.

They took his body and embalmed it, and kept vigil by its side; then, in the legend of the poets, they did as the Cid had bidden them: they set him upon his good horse Bavieca, and fastened the saddle well, so that he sat erect, with his countenance unchanged, his eyes bright and fair, and his beard flowing down his breast, and his trusty sword Tizona in his hand. No one would have known that he was dead. And they led Bavieca out of the city: Pero Bermudez in front with the banner of the Cid and five hundred knights to guard it, and Dona Ximena behind with her company and escort. Slowly they cut a path through the besiegers, and took the road to Castile, leaving the Moors in sore amazement at their strange departure: for they did not know that the Cid was dead. But the body of the hero was set in an ivory chair beside the great altar of San Pedro de Cardena, under a canopy whereon were blazoned the arms of Castile and Leon, Navarre and Aragon, and of the Cid Campeador. Ten years the Cid sat upright beside the altar, his face still n.o.ble and comely, when the signs of death at last began to appear; so they buried him before the altar, where Dona Ximena already lay; and they left him in the vault, still upright in the ivory chair, still in his princely robes with the sword Tizona in his hand,--still the great Campeador whose dinted shield and banner of victory hung desolate over his tomb.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XII.

THE KINGDOM OF GRANADA.

With such soldiers as the Cid, and such kings as Fernando and Alfonso, the recovery of all Spain by the Christians was only a matter of time.

Every nation, it appears, has its time of growth and its period of efflorescence, after which comes the age of decay. As Greece fell, as Rome fell, as every ancient kingdom the world has known has risen, triumphed, and fallen, so fell the Moors in Spain. Their time was now near at hand. They had been divided and undisciplined before the Almoravide annexation: they were not less so when their Berber masters had been expelled. But hardly had the Almoravides disappeared, when a new enemy came on the scene. The Almohades, or fanatical "Unitarians,"

who had overthrown the power of the Almoravides in Africa, resolved to imitate their vanquished predecessors by including Andalusia in their empire. The dissensions among the princes of the long-shattered kingdom of the Moors made the task an easy one. In 1145 the Almohades took Algeciras; in 1146 they occupied Seville and Malaga, and the next four years saw Cordova and the rest of southern Spain united under their sway. Some princes, indeed, held out for a while, but the hordes of African fanatics were too overpowering for any single chief to make a protracted stand against them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BANNER OF THE ALMOHADES.]

The Almohades, however, had no thought of making Andalusia the centre of their government. They ruled it from Africa, and the consequence was that their hold upon Spain was weak. The disturbed provinces of Andalusia were not easily to be retained by princes who contented themselves with deputies sent from Morocco, and with an occasional expedition to repel the attacks of the Christians. When they came in force their efforts were generally crowned with success. They won a splendid victory over the Christians in 1195 at Alarcos, near Badajoz, where thousands of the enemy were slain, and immense spoils fell into the hands of the fanatics. But the fortune of war changed when, in 1212, the disastrous field of Las Navas decided the fate of the Almohades. Of 600,000 men, few escaped to tell the tale of slaughter. City after city fell into the hands of the Christians; and family dissensions among the foreigners, and the attacks of rival dynasties in Africa, enabled the chiefs of Andalusia, who had grown impatient of the spasmodic rule of their foreign masters, in 1235, to drive the Almohades out of the peninsula. An Arab chief, Ibn-Hud, then made himself master of most of the south of Spain, and even of Ceuta in Africa; but he died in 1238, and the command of Andalusia now devolved upon the Beny-Nasr of Granada.

The kingdom of Granada was the last bulwark of the Moors in Spain. It was not much that was now left to them. Between 1238 and 1260, Fernando III. of Castile and Jayme I. of Aragon conquered Valencia, Cordova, Seville, and Murcia; and the rule of the Moors was now restricted to the present province of Granada, _i.e._, the country about the Sierra Nevada and the sea coast from Almeria to Gibraltar. Within this limit, however, their kingdom was destined to endure for another two centuries and a half. Though hemmed in on all sides, the Moors were well served by soldiers. The people of the conquered cities, the most valiant warriors of the vanquished Moslem states, came to place their swords at the disposal of the one remaining Mohammedan king. Fifty thousand Moors are recorded to have fled to his protection from Valencia, and three hundred thousand from Seville, Xeres, and Cadiz. Nevertheless, Granada was forced to become tributary to the Castilian crown. The founder of the dynasty of the Beny-Nasr, an Arab named Ibn-el-Ahmar, or the "Red man,"