Abdoulrahman profited little by these dissensions: his power was employed in gratifying a passion for splendour, for which he is better remembered than he would have been for a life of greater activity. His son made only one campaign. A sickly boy succeeded him. Mahommed, who was appointed his guardian, was called after the manner of the Orientals, Alhagib, or the Eyelid; he soon acquired and deserved the name of Almanzor, the Victorious, by which he is remembered in history. The genius of this man well nigh proved fatal to the Spanish Christians, weakened as they were by their own divisions. The Leonese looked on with unconcern or with satisfaction while he ravaged Castille, and the Castillians were consoled when Leon suffered in its turn. Two and fifty times did he lead his armies into their country, and return with their spoils. Such terror had he struck into them, that Bermudo retreated with the seat of government from Leon back among the mountains to Oviedo, the bodies of the Kings his predecessors were taken from their graves and removed, and the relicks of the Saints and Martyrs packed up for flight. This fear was not without cause. Almanzor appeared before the walls. Count Guillen was in the city, so far spent with sickness that he could not stand; nevertheless when he heard that the Moors had made a breach, he ordered his men to arm him and carry him in his bed to the place of danger. There he encouraged the Leonese, more by his presence than by his weak efforts; but there he maintained the breach three days, and there, when another quarter had been forced, he perished, sword in hand, in his bed. The conqueror carried his arms farther and ravaged Galicia. Santiago, the tutelary Saint of Spain, the God of their battles, could not defend his own Church. Almanzor sent the great bells from Compostella to be his trophies, and hung them up as lamps in the Mosque of Cordova. During one of his expeditions, the Christians took advantage of a fall of snow, and occupied the mountain passes to intercept his return. The Moor calmly pitched his camp in the valley, and prepared to make it his dwelling place. He ploughed and sowed the ground, and so harrassed the country behind him, that the Christians offered him a price Rod. Xim. for his coming harvest, and implored him to depart. They who could not triumph over him while living, insulted him with lying legends when he was no more. They asserted that the Saints whose churches he had profaned, struck him with his mortal sickness, and that when he died the Devil was heard bewailing him along the banks of the Guadalquivir. But the Moors wrote truly upon his monument, What he was is seen in his actions; such a Defender of Spain will not be found after him. Yet the ascendancy which Almanzor obtained by these triumphs eventually ruined the Spanish Moors. Their King had still the nominal authority; whatever splendour his state required, and whatever luxuries could tend to amuse or effeminate him, were amply afforded him; but he was actually a prisoner; he never went beyond the precincts of the palace, and none except the governor's friends were admitted to see him. For a cha racter thus helpless and enfeebled, the people could feel no respect; and they repeatedly offered the throne to Almanzor; he was satisfied with the substantial sovereignty which he enjoy-.. ed, nor could he be tempted by the wish of leaving a legitimate title to his son Abdalmelic, a man not unworthy of such a father. That son was supported during a short administration by his own moderation and his father's fame. His brother, who succeeded, had less talent and less virtue; he usurped the royal title, abused his power, and was soon destroyed. Civil wars ensued; the Spanish Moors espoused the cause of one adventurer, the Africans who had flocked to follow Almanzor's victo, Hist. Arab. 51. Cor. Gen. 3. 52. Ebn Casiri. t. 2.. p. 49. Moret. Ann. de Navar. l. 10.c.a. § 3. 2. § 4. ries, fought for another; the race of Abdoulrahman was cut off, Moret. 1. 12. and his empire was divided. The petty tyrant of every town now called himself King, and crimes and miseries multiplied with the title. The lower the sceptre sunk, the more hands were stretched out to reach it. Ambition takes no warning from example. Hymeya, one of these wretches, asked the Cordovans to make him King, just as the last puppet had been murdered. They replied, Do you not see the tumultuous state of the city? Rod. Xim. the populace will destroy you. Obey me to-day, said he, and kill me to-morrow. Such was the drunken lust for power. Hist. Ar. p. 72. The Moors brought with them into Spain the causes of their own destruction,.. despotism and polygamy; consumptive principles, which suffered indeed the body to mature, but when the growing energy had ceased, immediately began their morbid and mortal action. These causes produced their inevitable effects, the war of brother against brother, the revolt of towns and provinces, the breaking up of kingdoms. The Spaniards meantime were free; they were inferior in numbers, they were less civilized than their enemies, and their history is sullied by acts of worse barbarity;.. but they were a Christian and a free people. The moral institutions of Christianity gave them a decided and increasing advantage. Even its corruptions were in their favour. Mahommed won his first victory by calling for an army of Angels, when his troops were giving way. He gallopped forward, and casting a handful of sand among the enemy, exclaimed, Let their faces be covered with confusion! The Moslem believed that the armies of God obeyed his call, and in that faith they were victorious. The deliverers of Spain encouraged their followers by coarser frauds; a hermit had promised them victory,.. or they had seen visions,..or the Cross which was their banner, had appeared to them in the sky. The invention of a tutelary Saint to fight their battles, not metaphorically, but in person, was a bolder and more animating fiction. Ramiro had fought a whole day long with the Moors; he kept the field at night with a broken and dispirited army, who were compelled to abide the next morning's danger, because they were surrounded and could not fly. The King called them together, and told them that Santiago had appeared to him in a dream, and had promised to be with them in the battle, visibly and bodily, on a white steed, bearing a white banner with a red cross. The Leonese, who before this had lost all hope, began the attack, shouting God and Santiago. A knight led them on, riding a white steed, and bearing a white banner with a bloody cross. They utterly defeated the Moors. A general tribute in bread and wine was granted to the Saint's church for ever, and a knight's portion from the spoils of every victory which the Christians should gain. This pious fraud was the resource of genius in distress; but it had been preluded by deceit, and was systematized into a national mythology. The body of Santiago had been discovered under Ramiro's predecessor; his grandson Alfonso rebuilt the church of the Apostle with greater magnificence than the Christian Kings before him had ever displayed; and its priesthood exercised their ingenuity in inventing legends to the honour of their patron Saint, and to their own emolument. This they did so successfully that Compostella became the great point of European pilgrimage. The merit of this pilgrimage was enhanced by the difficulty and danger of the journey; the pilgrims soon became so numerous that parties of Moorish, and perhaps also of Christian banditti, associated to plunder them. On the other hand, the Canons of St. Eloy erected guest-houses for their accommodation along the road from France, and money and estates were often bequeathed to endow them by individuals and princes. After their example a few hidalgos who were equally devout and warlike, joined their property, and formed themselves into a religious brotherhood for the purpose of protecting the pilgrims. War never stops at defence. A.D.1175. They soon found it their duty to attack the Misbelievers and hence, about fourscore years after the death of the Cid, arose the order of Santiago, which was so long the scourge of the 1. 11. c. 12. Moors. Mariana. Moret. Ann. de Nav. t. 1. P. 164. Morales9.7. 638. A regular system of deceit practised by the priests for their own immediate interest, continually freshened and invigorated the enthusiasm of the people. To obtain the profits of a favourite altar, was the motive which influenced the inventor of a Martyr's body, or of an Image; but when Chapels were thus founded, cities sometimes grew. A shepherd told his fellows that he had followed a dove towards a rock, whither by her frequent flight, and turning back to him upon the wing, she seemed to invite him: there he had discovered a cavern and an image of the Virgin, at whose feet the Dove remained undisturbed, being conscious of divine protection. Such was the devotion of the people that a town was soon built there. St. Maria la Blanca was deserted by all its inhabitants for this holier place of residence, but the priests and people go yearly among its ruins to perform a service for the souls of their forefathers who are buried there. A pious Spaniard employed his life in improving the great road to Compostella, opening thickets and building bridges along the way. About twenty paces from his little hermitage he made his own tomb. The pilgrims gratitude did not cease when their benefactor died. His tomb became a place of popular devotion; a splendid church was at length erected over it, and that church is now the Cathedral of a City, which is called St. Domingo de la Calzada, after his name. A hermit, by name Juan, fixed his dwelling on Mount Uruela, not far from Jaca: he built a chapel on one of its |