CHAPTER XX

THE GROWTH OF CHRISTIAN SPAIN[42]

Characteristics of Spanish History—The Caliphate of Cordova and its decline—The Christian States—Navarre under Sancho the Great—Beginning of the Christian advance—Alfonso VI. and the Conquest of Toledo—The Cid—The Almoravides and the Battle of Zallaca—The Divisions of Islam—Rivalry of Almoravides and Almohades—Alfonso I. and the Rise of Aragon—Affonso Henriquez and the Capture of Lisbon—Triumph of the Almohades—Innocent III. and the Spanish Crusades—Las Navas de Tolosa—James I. of Aragon and St. Ferdinand of Castile—Completion of the Reconquest—Organisation of Christian Spain—Peter of Aragon and Alfonso the Wise of Castile.

[Sidenote: Characteristics of Spanish History.]

The period covered by this volume is marked by the gradual re-entry of the Spanish peninsula into the Christian Commonwealth. At the beginning of the tenth century the Christian states of Spain were still confined to the extreme north, while nearly all the land worth having was subject to the sway of the Caliphs of Cordova. Before the end of the thirteenth century Islam had been driven back into the hills of southern Andalusia. Four strong Christian kingdoms ruled the greater part of the peninsula, and acquired, as a result of the continued Crusade that gave them existence, a character intensely warlike, turbulent, religious, and enthusiastic. On the ruins of the civilisation of Islam arose one of the most characteristic types of mediæval Christianity.

It is impossible to follow in detail either the unending revolutions of the Spanish Mohammedans, or the constant fluctuations of victory and defeat between them and their Christian rivals, or the intricate domestic history and perpetual unions and divisions of the Spanish states themselves. Yet the history of Europe, and of the great contest of Christianity and Islam round which so much of our history turns, would be very incompletely narrated were all reference to the Spanish struggle omitted. In the present chapter this can only be told in the baldest and briefest outline.

[Sidenote: The Caliphate of Cordova.]

Among the first signs of the dissolution of Islam had been the establishment by a branch of the Ommiades of a schismatic Caliphate at Cordova. Yet so long as the divisions of the Mohammedan world were not too inveterate, the followers of the Prophet, if no longer active or aggressive, still upheld great and flourishing states. Nowhere did Mohammedan civilisation attain a greater glory than under the Caliphs of Cordova. The wealth, the luxury, the trade, the science and the arts of the East never shone more brilliantly than in the days when Cordova rivalled in splendour, luxury, and culture both the Fatimite Court at Cairo and the orthodox Abbasside Caliphs of Bagdad. Both the Jews and Christians enjoyed tolerable prosperity under the Ommiad yoke, and the schools of Cordova preserved a tradition of Greek culture which made them famous even in the Christian world. The Caliphs ruled over all Spain south of the lower Douro and the mountains of the Guadarrama, restricting the kings of Leon and Navarre and the counts of Castile within the rugged region of the north, while a series of half-independent Moorish states ran like a wedge from the Ebro to the Pyrenees, and utterly separated the kingdom of Navarre from the county of Barcelona or Catalonia, which in its weakness remained dependent upon the West-Frankish kings, as it had been since Charlemagne first organised the Spanish March between Pyrenees and Ebro. Wars of aggression seemed over; religious wars even were almost dead. The Christian warriors of the north held frequent intercourse with their infidel neighbours, and did not scruple to avail themselves of their aid in their ceaseless feuds with one another.

[Sidenote: The Decline of Cordova.]

The decline of the Caliphate of Cordova destroyed these fair prospects. The dismemberment of Moorish Spain amongst a series of rival Ameers increased the opportunities of Christian aggression, while it destroyed the peace and prosperity of Islam. In 1002 the death of the great minister Almansor ended the prosperity of the Caliphate. In 1028 the fall of the Ommiades was completed. Yet Moorish culture died very slowly, and it was not until the next century was nearly over that the glory of Arab science attained its culmination in the career of Averroes (1126–1198), the greatest of the Cordovan doctors, and the teacher of the schoolmen of Christendom. But political supremacy had long passed away from the Moors. The disunion of Islam was the opportunity of the Christians, and, despite several Mohammedan revivals, the fortunes of Christian Spain were now assured, though for a long time the advance was fitful and exceedingly slow. The divided Moors fell back upon the support of their brethren in Africa, without whose help their decline would have been much more rapid.

[Sidenote: The Christian States.]

At the time of the fall of the Calipate there were four Christian states in Spain, the kingdoms of Leon and Navarre, and the counties of Barcelona and Castile. Under the rule of Sancho the Great (970–1035) the little upland kingdom of Navarre held for the moment the first place among them. But Sancho turned his main energies towards conquering his Christian neighbours, and before his death he dominated, with the title of Emperor, all Christian Spain, save the Spanish March. [Sidenote: Supremacy of Navarre under Sancho the Great.] On his death his dominions were divided among his children. Among these was Castile, already erected into a kingdom in favour of his second son Ferdinand. Another son, Ramiro, had received the little knot of mountain land which subsequently grew into the kingdom of Aragon, and which under Alfonso I. extended its territories towards the Ebro valley, at the expense of the Ameers of Saragossa. [Sidenote: Union of Castile and Leon and beginning of the Christian advance.] Meanwhile the preponderance formerly enjoyed by Sancho the Great was transferred to central Spain by the union of the ancient kingdom of Leon with the great monarchy of Castile, under Ferdinand I. Before this prince’s death in 1065 the conquest of the valley of the Douro began the period of definitive expansion. In the lower Douro valley Ferdinand set up the vassal county of Oporto, and, between that stream and the Mondego, another tributary county of Coimbra. Under Alfonso VI. the time of the great conquests began. The Castilians crossed the high mountains of Guadarrama, and penetrated into the valley of the Tagus. For a long time Alfonso feared to break openly with the Ameer of Toledo, the lord of that region, but he found an ally in the rival Ameer of Seville, whose daughter he now took as his concubine. [Sidenote: Alfonso VI. conquers Toledo.] While the Moors of Toledo fought against their co-religionists at Seville, Alfonso conquered the upper valley of the Tagus, and became lord of Madrid, the modern capital of Spain. In vain the Ameer offered to become the vassal of the triumphant Castilian for the rest of his dominions. Alfonso swept, steadily down the course of the great river. In 1085 he entered in triumph into Toledo itself.

The history of Alfonso’s alliances shows how little of religious fanaticism entered into the wars of the two races. Even his crowning conquest of Toledo was due not so much to his prowess as to a treacherous league with some of its disloyal defenders. [Sidenote: The Cid.] Alfonso’s famous subject, Ruy Diaz, the Cid Campeador, the most famous legendary hero of early Spain, though figuring in romance as a Christian hero, was in history a brave and self-seeking _condottiere_, who sold his sword to the Moors, or took the pay of the rival King of Aragon almost as cheerfully as he fought for his native Castile. But the fall of the ancient Gothic capital created a terrible panic in the Mohammedan world, and something like a Crusade was started by Islam to win back the ground that it had lost. The frightened Ameers of Spain met together, and agreed to seek foreign help against the overbearing foe. [Sidenote: The Almoravides.] A sect of Mohammedan enthusiasts, called the Almoravides, and mainly composed of the Berbers of the Sahara, had recently overrun all northern Africa, displacing the ancient Arab dynasts, and rekindling the ancient zeal of the followers of the Prophet. The Spanish Moors now turned to Yussuf, the Almoravides’ leader, and begged him to come to their assistance. After some hesitation Yussuf accepted the challenge. In 1086 he crossed the Straits of Gibraltar. His army of fierce and barbarous nomads of the desert soon wrought infinitely greater havoc on the Christians than the lax and effeminate Arabs of the Peninsula had been wont to do. Alfonso VI., who was besieging Saragossa when he heard of Yussuf’s arrival, turned south to resist the new foe, and the kings of Aragon and Navarre sent reinforcements to the strongest representative of the Christian cause. [Sidenote: Battle of Zallaca.] But on 23rd October 1086 the host of Alfonso was utterly destroyed at the battle of Zallaca, near Badajoz, and the victorious African was proclaimed Ameer of Andalous or Moorish Spain.

[Sidenote: Divisions of Islam.]

Spanish Christianity was now saved by the dissensions that broke out between the Spanish Arabs and their African champion. The petty Ameers of Spain were disgusted at Yussuf remaining behind in the Peninsula and striving to be its effective ruler. Hostilities soon broke out between them and Yussuf, who, finding allies in the fanatic party in Andalous itself, diverted his arms from the Christians against the subordinate lords of Islam. Within the next few years he had conquered every Ameer save the ruler of Saragossa, who was suffered to hold his northern marchland against the aggressive Aragonese. During this period Alfonso VI. resumed his conquests. He devastated the lower valley of the Tagus from Toledo to the sea, and for the time made himself master of Lisbon. [Sidenote: Alfonso VI. takes Lisbon.] Meanwhile the Cid profited by the dissensions of Islam to pursue a bolder career. He deserted his paymaster, the Ameer of Saragossa, and at the head of his trusty mercenaries sought to carve a state for himself out of the ruins of the power of Islam in eastern Spain. [Sidenote: Conquest of Valencia by the Cid.] In 1094 he made himself master of Valencia, after performing prodigies of valour. But a disastrous failure cost him the lives of the best of his troops, and in 1099 the Cid died of grief at the loss of his faithful followers. His widow strove in vain to hold Valencia against the Moors, but her only possible helper was the king of Castile, and he was too far off to give effective assistance. Three years later she abandoned the smoking ruins of Valencia to the Moorish hosts, and retired with the bones of her husband to a safe refuge in Castile. Before this Yussuf had become master of Mohammedan Spain. He again turned his arms against Alfonso, and easily drove the Castilians from Lisbon and their other recent conquests. It was all that Alfonso could do to maintain himself in Toledo. His death in 1108 saved him from further disasters.

[Sidenote: The rivalry of Almoravides and Almohades.]

Yussuf had already died in 1106, but the dissensions of Castile and Leon that followed the death of Alfonso VI. made it easy for his successors to hold their own. Before long, however, the short term of activity of an Oriental dynasty had ended; and the Almoravides saw their African possessions taken away from them by the newer and fiercer power of the Almohades, the Berbers of the Atlas, who had long resented the rule of their brethren of the desert. Meanwhile the Almoravides’ hold over Spain was becoming weakened. The Berber soldiers still ruled over the Moslem as conquered subjects, and their fanatic zeal still more disgusted the Mozarabic Christians (_i.e._ the Christians subject to the Arab yoke) who had borne with equanimity the tolerant yoke of the Spanish Arabs. [Sidenote: Alfonso I. and the Rise of Aragon.] A new saviour of the Christians now arose in Alfonso I. of Aragon, the true founder of the Aragonese power. In 1118 he had won for Aragon its natural capital in Saragossa. He led destructive forays into the heart of Andalusia, and brought home with him numerous Mozarabic families, to whom he afforded a new home in the north. By the time of his death before the walls of Valencia, Aragon had become second only to Castile among the kingdoms of Christian Spain. Nor were the successes of the Cross only in Aragon. Count Raymond Berengar IV. of Barcelona united for a time his county with Aragon and conquered Tortosa in 1148. In the extreme west the little counties of Oporto and Coimbra had long been united to form the county of Portugal, now ruled by Affonso Henriquez, the founder of Portuguese greatness. [Sidenote: Affonso Henriquez and the Capture of Lisbon.] In 1139 Affonso penetrated far into the heart of the Moorish country beyond the Tagus and won the famous battle of Ourique. Next year he assumed the title of King of Portugal. In 1147, with the help of a fleet of English and German warriors on their way to join the Second Crusade, Affonso drove the Moors out of Lisbon, which now became the capital of the infant kingdom. The Crusaders to the East now joined hands with the Crusaders of the West. While the Northern pilgrims helped to conquer Lisbon, French Crusaders fought for Raymond Berengar of Barcelona and Provence, and the Knights of the Temple and the Hospital stationed themselves in the valley of the Ebro as well as in Syria. Spain soon had Military Orders of her own. In 1149 Sancho IX. of Castile captured Calatrava, on the upper Guadiana, from the Moors, and made it over to the Cistercians, who, inspired by St. Bernard, were already establishing themselves in Spain and proclaiming the Crusade against the infidel. [Sidenote: The Spanish Military Orders.] In 1158 the knightly order of Calatrava was set up to defend the Cistercian possession. The order was the ‘holy soldiery of Cîteaux,’ a sort of martial section of the White Monks, and in close dependence upon them. In an equally close relation to the Cistercians stood the order of St. Julian, founded even earlier, in 1152, by the king of Leon, which became, in 1218, the order of Alcantara, when that stronghold on the lower Tagus was won from the Moors and handed over to the knights to defend it. Both orders took the full monastic vows, but a less ascetic regimen prevailed with the order of Evora in Portugal, set up in 1162 as a sort of ‘conversi’ or lay brethren of the Cistercians, and allowed marriage and the enjoyment of property. On the same lines was formed, under the patronage of Alexander III. and Innocent III., the most famous of the Spanish orders, that of Santiago, which, alone of its class, was quite independent of Cîteaux. [Sidenote: The Crusades in Spain.] Under the Cistercian guidance the Spanish struggle took more and more the character of a religious war. Instead of local wars between neighbouring chieftains, the contest now became part of the general struggle between the two civilisations and religions that had so long divided the world.

[Sidenote: Triumph of the Almohades.]

The deepening feud of the Almoravides and Almohades allowed the Christians, despite their own divisions, to win fresh ground. In 1146 Morocco was captured by the Almohades, who immediately afterwards crossed the Straits to extend their rule from Africa to Andalous. The fierce sectarian conflict of the rival Mohammedans had for its natural result the almost simultaneous captures of Tortosa, Lisbon, and Calatrava. But the Almohades soon made themselves masters of infidel Spain, and turned fiercely against the Christians. In 1185 they won the battle of Alarcos over Alfonso VIII. of Castile. Their victory stayed for the time the progress of the Cross, and restored Calatrava to the rule of the Crescent. For the rest of the century the constant wars between Leon, Castile, Navarre, and Aragon played the game of the infidel.

[Sidenote: Innocent III. and the Spanish Crusade.]

Innocent III. revived the Crusading ardour of Spain, and inspired great bands of Northern warriors to cross the Pyrenees and join in the struggle against Islam. Alfonso VIII. sought to atone for the disasters of his youth by victories in his old age. A vast Crusading host collected at Toledo, and showed its ardour by mercilessly butchering the Jews of that city. The threats and entreaties of the great Pope inspired King Peter of Aragon and the king of Navarre to join the army of Alfonso of Castile. The local military orders were well to the fore, and only the king of Leon held aloof from the greatest combined effort that had as yet ever been made against Spanish Islam. [Sidenote: Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa.] The crusading host crossed the mountains of Toledo and restored the rule of Castile in the upper valley of the Guadiana, where Calatrava was now restored to its Cistercian lords. It was with much difficulty that the Christians could be persuaded to advance farther south, but a shepherd showed them a path which enabled them to avoid the Moorish host that was waiting for them in the defiles of the Sierra Morena, and they successfully crossed the mountains to Las Navas de Tolosa, an upland valley watered by a tributary of the Guadalquivir. There, on 16th July 1212, was fought the famous battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, which secured for ever the preponderance of Christianity in Spain. Within fifty years of the victory the Moors had all they could do to hold their own in the little kingdom of Granada that alone represented the ancient Andalous.

[Sidenote: James I. of Aragon.]

James I. (1213–1276) of Aragon and Ferdinand III. (the Saint) completed the work which Alfonso VIII. had thus successfully begun. The son of that Peter of Aragon who had fought so well at Las Navas de Tolosa, James was called to his kingdom as a child by his father’s death on the fatal field of Muret. He was a true hero of chivalry, one of the greatest warriors of the Middle Ages, ardent, pious, merciful, and ignorant of the very name of fear. Though a soldier of the Cross, his matrimonial irregularities did not escape papal censure. While first of all a warrior, he did not shun the arts of peace, writing in his native Catalan tongue an autobiographical chronicle which is one of the most precious records of the thirteenth century.[43] His first exploit was the conquest of the Balearic Islands between 1229 and 1232. He then turned against Valencia, anxious to do over again the work of the Cid. In 1238 Valencia opened her gates to him, and Aragon thus established her limits such as they remained so long as she remained an independent kingdom.

[Sidenote: St. Ferdinand of Castile.]

Saint Ferdinand (Ferdinand III.) of Castile reigned from 1214–1252, and was enabled in 1230 to effect the definitive union of Leon with his original inheritance. He fought with great brilliancy and courage with the Moors in the valley of the Guadalquivir, and before his death succeeded in utterly expelling them from the most famous of their haunts. In 1236 he conquered the ancient seat of the Caliphs at Cordova, and turned the famous mosque of many columns into a Christian cathedral, while in 1246 his triumphs in this region were completed by his capture of Jaen. Before that, in 1244, he had entered Seville, and in 1250 the capture of Xeres and Cadiz gave him access to the Atlantic. His successor, Alfonso X., completed the conquest of Murcia in conjunction with James of Aragon. Meanwhile Portugal had acquired her modern limits by 1262, by the conquest of Algarve, Spanish Algarve being also won by Alfonso X. When Islam was thus nearly overthrown the tide of conquest was stayed, and for more than two hundred years longer Granada, but Granada alone, remained in Moorish hands.

After the land had been won back from the Moors, the Spanish kings had to deal with the organisation and government of their conquests. The withdrawal of the Mohammedans left great tracts of territory open to the settlement of the hardy northerners, among whom the land was divided out, like a new country for the first time opened up to civilisation. [Sidenote: The Organisation and Government of Christian Spain.] Foreign countries, especially the south of France, contributed to these emigrations. The Mozarabs soon amalgamated with the settlers, and even after constant expulsions a strong Moorish and a considerable Jewish element remained, especially in the south, for the central provinces of Old and New Castile were cleared of the Moors. The whole of Spanish institutions bore a deep impress of the character of the conquest. The military orders, who had fought so well, had enormous territories in the reconquered lands. The clergy were invested with higher authority than in any other Christian country. The kings were proud to obtain from the Papacy a confirmation of their right to govern their realms. But the nobility was also very powerful, and the division of interests between the greater and the lesser barons was so marked that in Aragon they formed separate Estates of the realm. In Castile the monarchical authority was the strongest, but the grants of privileges to the king’s partners in the conquest had even here given the institutions a markedly aristocratic character, and no country was fuller of hereditary feuds and local dissensions. Aragon was a thoroughly feudalised country, where the maintenance of public rights was intrusted to a supreme magistrate called the _Justicia_, before whose tribunal all disputes between the king and his subjects might be carried, and whose influence overshadowed that of the monarch. The _Justicia_ was always chosen from the lesser nobility, a class that the Aragonese kings favoured as their best supporters against the feudal magnates. Even the towns of Spain bore the military and ecclesiastical impress that the Moorish wars had given to the whole nation. They were an important element of the _Cortes_, or Estates-General, that grew up very early in the Peninsula. Their associations or _hermandads_ were almost as formidable to the crown as the leagues of the nobility.

[Sidenote: The New Spain.]

After the reconquest from the Moors was over, Spanish history takes a new character. Under Alfonso X. of Castile (1252–1284), Peter III. of Aragon (1276–1285), and Affonso III. of Portugal (1245–1279) the internal development of the three chief Spanish kingdoms falls into line with that of the rest of Europe.

[Sidenote: Alfonso X. of Castile.]

Alfonso X., surnamed the Wise, of Castile, was one of the most remarkable sovereigns of the thirteenth century, and is well worthy to be classed with St. Louis, with Frederick II., or with his brother-in-law, Edward I. of England. His rare gifts gave him fame as a man of learning, a poet, a historian, and a legislator, but his violent and unmeasured ambition paid but too little regard to the narrowness of his resources, and he had not the iron will and strong, resolute character without which no mediæval king could be a successful ruler. Thus it was that Alfonso failed in his early struggles with his neighbour Affonso III. of Portugal, whose more limited ambitions better enabled him to carry out his ideas. [Sidenote: Affonso III. of Portugal.] While the Castilian strove to play a great part in Europe, the Portuguese built cities, encouraged trade and agriculture, and struggled successfully even with the Papacy. While Portugal secured its rights over the Algarves, Alfonso plunged into a long contest with his Castilian nobles, in which he was by no means triumphant. The marriage of Alfonso’s sister with his Portuguese rival at last secured peace between the two realms. Alfonso X. was a theorist even in his famous legislation, called the _Siete Partidas_, in which he laid down a high theory of monarchy, though he could not live up to his pretensions. His contest with Richard of Cornwall for the Holy Roman Empire was the extreme example of his desire to cut a great figure in the world, but his subjects would not allow him to take any real steps to assert his claims. His quarrel with his son Sancho led to bloody civil wars that were continued after his death, and made it impossible for Castile to play a great part in Europe; but with all his errors Alfonso the Wise had first made her a European power. Even greater difficulties beset Alfonso’s contemporary Peter III. in Aragon. [Sidenote: Peter III. of Aragon.] Like James I., Peter III. had to yield before the nobles and the confederate cities, while his intervention in the affairs of Italy involved him in a fierce contest with the Papacy, and seemed for long to be utterly futile. But, like Alfonso X., Peter prepared for others the way that he was unable to traverse himself. More than two hundred years were still to elapse before the rulers of the Peninsula were able to realise the monarchical theories of Alfonso, and push to a successful result the Italian policy of Peter.