Stories from mediaeval Spain

Front matter

ORIES DIAEVA rE

LS

ME ee

CHAPTER I RODRIGO, THE LAST OF THE GOTHIC KINGS ‘* THE blood of the Goths was a fierce blood.’’

So says an old Spanish chronicle, and the unwarlike citizens of the Roman Province of Hispania, who first beheld one of the strong-limbed, fair-haired invaders from the North, quick to emphasise his swaggering insolence towards those he had conquered with a blow from his battle-axe, must have trembled for the culture and luxury that to the fallen Empire of Rome had meant life itself.

In large measure the fear proved groundless. Destruction there was, of course, and innovations, as ever where there is conquest; but the Visigoth was no ruthless Hun, despising everything save chaos; and his outward contempt for those who knew not how to fight concealed admiration for the comfort that order and peace were able to bestow.

Thus, during the three hundred years that followed the Visigothic invasion of Spain in the fifth century A.D., the conquerors, instead of exterminating the conquered, gradually absorbed a large portion of the Roman Law, customs and language, even accepting, after a struggle, the orthodox Catholic faith in place of the Arian heresy in which their fathers had been bred.

This easy fusion was not wholly good; for the shame as well as the glory of the latter years of Rome was born again in the Kingdom of Andalus, flaunting itself in the wealth and magnificence of Visigothic rulers and landowners in contrast to the overtaxed poverty of ordinary citizens and the misery of serfs and slaves.

Only amongst the turbulent nobles was there any trace of the once proud spirit of the Teutonic tribes, and that merely an echo, entirely selfish in its demand for independence.

‘‘ King shalt thou be if thou doest right.... If thou doest not right, no king shalt thou be.’’

This old Gothic formula still held sway at the election of Spanish sovereigns; and since each noble present considered himself a fitting candidate and his neighbour an unworthy rival, few kings were found to do right for any length of time in the eyes of those who had reluctantly chosen them. Eleven out of thirteen successive Spanish rulers met a violent death, while others were sent into monasteries or left, deprived of their sight, to linger out their days in dungeons.

Rodrigo, Duke of Baetica, was the last of these Gothic kings, a romantic figure in legend, but almost unknown, save for a brief mention, in the annals of authentic history.

““He had good natural parts and seemed wellinclined . . . . but he had no discretion in his undertaking'ss.’’

This is but a mild description of the man, whose obstinacy and self-indulgence, according to popular legend, sold Christian Spain to the Moors.

We know nothing of Rodrigo’s looks and bearing: in one tale his adventures begin when he is over eighty; in another he is apparently a reckless youth: but all story-tellers concur in praising his prowess as a general, recording how he put to flight the tribes of Biscay and Galicia, whose delight it was to raid the more orderly and fertile provinces of the South.

Triumphant over these barbarians, the victor played the usual part of the ambitious Gothic noble, for, refusing to recognise the young sons of his master, King Wittiza, as heirs to the throne on their father’s death, he drove them from Toledo, the capital, and by mingled bribery and threats obtained his own election.

Henceforward he lived as he pleased, indifferent to the threats of the exiled princes, or the mutterings of down-trodden Jews and serfs, contemptuous of possible danger from Moorish and Berber pirates along the Mediterranean coasts.

Once an enthusiastic soldier, he warred no more, save in mimic battlery, planned, if the chroniclers speak true, with a magnificence that drew half the chivalry of Europe to feast and joust within the walls of Toledo. Hither came lords of Gascony, Navarre and Lombardy: Counts of Saxony and the Marches: Dukes of France: an English Prince: a King of Poland: the Emperor’s brother from Constantinople: Sultans from Turkey and Bagdad: each and all with their retinues of knights, squires and pages, received according to their state with a hospitality and luxury worthy of Imperial Rome.

While the tournaments lasted, the inhabitants of the capital lived for the most part in tents without the walls, and here, in hastily-improvised workshops, over one thousand five hundred master armourers worked day and night, fashioning maces, shields, head-pieces, and fine Toledan blades.

Toledo herself, lent for the time to her foreign guests, became, instead of a fortress, a city of palaces and revelry: night with its dances and _ feasts succeeding to the tournaments of the day, and all her streets resounding with the fame and glory of her generous king, Rodrigo, lord of the Goths. As he rode in the lists, distinguishing himself against all who dared to meet his lance, or dallied amongst the ladies, admired and courted, it is scarcely strange if he believed himself invincible and the rule of his race eternal.

One day, soon after he came to the throne of Andalusia, he sat in the great hall of his palace in Toledo and gave audience to two old men, clad in white robes embroidered with occult signs of stars and heavenly bodies. King Rodrigo had never seen them before, and his curiosity was excited by the collection of rusty keys that hung from their girdles.

““Why are you thus burdened with these keys? ”’ he demanded.

Then one of the old men, stepping forward, answered: ‘‘ Lord Rodrigo, these are the keys of the Kings who reigned before thee. Behold each in turn has affixed his padlock to the iron gate of the enchanted tower that Hercules set up of old, weaving a spell within to keep at bay invaders from the African shore.”’

“And the spell? Knowest thou its secret? ”’

The old man shook his head.

“None hath known,” he replied gravely, ‘‘ save Hercules, and none shall know save with peril to himself and his land. It is, therefore, we are come, O King, to pray thee affix thy padlock also, as all the kings have done before thee.’’

*‘Such a tale is mere jest,’’ interrupted Rodrigo, adding angrily as he saw their horror, ‘‘ and even were it true thou hast awakened in me a burning desire to solve this mystery. Lead me to the tower that I may force an entrance.”

At this both the old men began to entreat the king. that he would give up his design, wringing their hands and saying:

‘‘ Of a certainty, honesty, prudence, and policy are all in accord with our advice.”’

Rodrigo, who cared not a fig for honesty, prudence, or policy, snapped his fingers and laughed.

‘Nay, but my curiosity shall be satisfied,’ he concluded the interview. ‘‘ Bring me to the tower and that speedily as ye value your lives.”

Then the King and all his court, led by the two old men, set out through the streets of Toledo to the rocky heights beyond the river; and there on a high cliff stood a tower with walls of shining jasper and marble. The courtiers, who had ridden forth as gaily as their monarch, were now afraid, and after whispering amongst themselves, some of the highest rank, held in most respect, approached the king.

““My lord, if it be treasure that thou dost seek,’’ they urged, “‘ tell us the amount of thy expectations. We ourselves will then collect the sum and deposit it in the royal treasury. Only do thou affix thy padlock also and let us depart again to Toledo as we came.”’

Impatiently, as if he had not heard them, Rodrigo leaped from his horse and began to mount the steep path to the tower. He cared for gold—yes! but not even gold could satisfy his love of excitement or pleasure when they gained the mastery over his senses.

Taking the keys from the old men in white, he endeavoured to turn them in the locks of the big iron gate that barred his entrance; but the locks were rusty and it was sunset ere he, and the old men, and the courtiers who worked at his bidding, were able to make the bolt yield.

As it at last fell back, the gate swung open, and Rodrigo saw a large hall, and just within the entrance, guarding it, a figure cast in bronze, taller than any living man, clad in armour, and wielding a mace, with which it struck the air, now on this side of the doorway, now on that.

** My lord, we pray thee turn back cried the trembling courtiers. ‘‘ This magic will be our ruin.”’ But Rodrigo, addressing the figure, boldly called to it:

““ Let me pass in safety, I entreat, for I am king of this land and plan no act of sacrilege.”’

The bronze figure paused with mace uplifted, and beneath its gigantic arm the King and his retinue entered the hall. On a table of silver and gold encrusted with precious stones, stood a marble urn, and on the urn was written the following inscription:

‘““ Here lies the mystery of the tower... . The hand of none save a king can open it, but let him beware since he shall learn of wonderful things that shall come to pass even before his death.’’

For a minute Rodrigo hesitated, then with a haughty gesture of contempt at the frightened faces of his attendants, lifted the marble lid and disclosed a folded parchment. Unrolled, it depicted in bright colours an atray of brown-skinned horsemen, shaggy-haired and clad in fur, bearing in their hands long spears, while at their belts hung curved swords, strange to Christian eyes, that glittered in the light from the jasper walls.

The silk-robed nobles looked at this picture of armed savages with disappointment and contempt, Rodrigo with impatience for such a paltry mystery.

‘‘ Read the script that is written below,’’ he commanded, and after a silence the courtier to whom he had handed it began in a trembling voice:

‘* Behold, when this asylum is violated and the spell contained in the urn broken, then the people painted within the urn shall invade Andalusia, overthrow the throne of her king, and subdue the whole country.”’

As he still read aloud the magic picture on the parchment began to blurr and change, till out of the misty background emerged a scene of battle. Then were shown brown-skinned horsemen, bearing the banner of the crescent triumphantly aloft, and a golden cross trampled on the ground beneath their feet... . Here were Christian warriors galloping wildly as if in flight, and in the foreground a milk-white steed, riderless, but bearing a saddle studded with jewels. .

‘It is my horse—Orelia,’’ cried the king, overcome with terror for the first time; and he and his retinue turned and fled. As they reached the outer air, legend says that they stumbled over the dead bodies of the two old men in white robes, and that when they reached the roadway below, the tower above burst into a blaze of fire that consumed the jasper walls and everything within. Nor was there a trace found afterwards save drops of blood dried on the ground where the burning ashes of the magic stronghold had fallen.

In the luxury of his court Rodrigo buried the memory of Hercules’ tower. Every day he hawked and rode abroad with his glittering train, but the men and women who heard him clatter through the streets neither cheered nor ran to their doors to rejoice in his brave display. To those who are brought so low in the enjoyment of life that the very animals have more rest and nourishment, there is little appeal of patriotism or pride in their king. One ruler is the same as another.

Rodrigo, for his part, was indifferent to their sullen brooding; for he looked on the citizens of Toledo and the other cities in his dominions as so much human cattle, to be worked, driven into battle, fleeced of money and goods, until they died of exhaustion and another generation took their place. His world was that of the nobles who sat round his board and flattered and praised him.

Chief favourite amongst these boon companions was Count Julian, Governor of the strip of land opposite to Spain called Ceuta, that alone of North Africa remained at this date a Christian province. Nominally, Ceuta’s Governor owed allegiance to the Greek Emperor at Constantinople; but, as every year advancing waves of Mahometan warriors pushed their way along the coast westward from Egypt and northward across the Mediterranean and Syria to the very gates of the Golden Horn, the Count would have fared ill indeed had not his Visigothic neighbours in Spain been ready to come to his aid.

No help could he expect from his hard-pressed overlord, the Emperor of the East, but in Wittiza Count Julian had found an able ally, and hoped to -gain another in Wittiza’s successor. This was the cause that brought him to the Court of Toledo with a present of hawks and the petition that he might leave his beautiful daughter, Florinda, amongst the Queen’s ladies, safe from any sudden invasion of his African province by Saracens.

Rodrigo, to whom the Count, proud and intractable in nature as himself, was a boon companion, willingly agreed. Then the Governor of Ceuta, after he had feasted and hawked, rode away southwards to uphold the banner of Christendom across the seas, while Florinda remained behind amongst the Queen’s ladies, and all the Court talked of her beauty and innocence, and of who amongst the young nobles was worthy to claim her as his bride.

Now Rodrigo heard this gossip and, seeing the maiden one day in the Queen’s private garden, his own passion became inflamed, and he desired her for himself above all treasures. In vain Florinda, when confident in his royal pride he made advances, rejected them indignantly: in vain she pleaded the protection he had pledged her in her father’s absence. What the last of the Gothic kings desired in a moment’s caprice he was accustomed to seize without thought of honour or policy; and so the love that was denied of free will he took by force and carried away Florinda from the Queen’s protection. |

One evening, some months later, the Governor of Ceuta, bravely maintaining his African outpost against the Moors, received a messenger from Andalusia, a messenger pale and weary, carrying a secret letter that, had it been found on his person on the other side of the Straits, would, he declared, have lost him his life. This letter unfolded, revealed a message from Florinda, despairing and pitiful, showing how she had been betrayed and upbraiding the treachery of her protector.

Count Julian, when he had read it, strode up and down the room with rage.

‘“‘ By the faith of the Messiah,’’ he took an oath, “I will undermine his throne and spread civil war in his dominions until the whole be overthrown.”’

Afterwards, when he had gained control over his fury, he began to plot his revenge, for he was a more subtle man than King Rodrigo, though equally passionate and self-centred. Instead of at once showing his determination to ruin the ally who had played him false, even if need be at the expense of Christendom, he crossed the sea and rode to the Court of Toledo in the guise of friendliness.

The King was angry when he saw him, for it was mid-winter, and he had believed him sea-bound for some months.

“What has brought thee here?’’ he exclaimed. “Thou knowest well that this is neither time nor occasion for coming to Court.” :

Then Count Julian excused himself humbly. The matter was urgent ... . his wife was ill and could no longer support the absence of her daughter, so that he had been forced by her entreaties to pledge the girl’s speedy return.

As soon as Rodrigo heard this his brow cleared. He had already wearied of his passion for Florinda and was glad that her sad eyes would reproach him no longer. With many compliments and gifts he sped father and daughter on their way.

‘‘ Obtain for me some of those swift hawks of thine

-and come again with them,’’ he called aloud in parting, and Count Julian, bowing to the ground, answered:

‘Doubt not, O King, but I shall return soon. By the faith of the Messiah I shall not rest satisfied until I bring thee such swift hawks as never in all thy life hast thou beheld.’’

Count Julian, as he spoke, knew nothing of the marble urn, but the hawks he had in mind were swift, brown-skinned horsemen with shaggy hair and flashing scimitars, men who called not on the name of Christ but on Allah and his prophet Mahomet, and who in the name of Allah and Mahomet were ever ready to swoop, spear in hand, on the dominions of those whom they called unbelievers.

Under the leadership of commanders who feared neither foe nor mountain nor desert, naught save the sin of cowardice, these warriors had swept North Africa from the Red Sea to the Atlantic, absorbing into their ranks the wild Berber tribesmen who had at first withstood their onslaughts.

“God is great,’’ cried Okbah, a famous Mahometan leader, when he first saw the Atlantic, and, flushed with religious frenzy, rode his horse into the waves. ‘‘ Were I not hindered by this sea I would go forward to the unknown kingdoms of the West, proclaiming the greatness of Thy Holy Name and subduing the nations who worship other gods than Thee.”’

Foiled in their ambition by the Atlantic, the Arabian armies dreamed with longing of turning northwards to win the marble palaces of Toledo and Cordova, the B cornfields of Murcia and the vineyards of Granada. The outpost of Ceuta fallen, only eight miles of sea would lie between them and this land of their desire. If Count Julian could be overthrown, the ‘ path of God,” as they called their fanatical march of conquest, lay clear and shining. Yet twice had Musa, the Conqueror of Africa, been driven back from the walls of Ceuta with all his horsemen and engines of war: twice had he failed!

One night, however, as Musa kept feast at his Court of Kairoan, he was told of the coming of a stranger on a secret mission, and when they were alone the man, drawing back the cloak that had half-concealed his face, stood revealed as Count Julian himself. Haughtily the Christian Governor explained his presence. For private revenge he was willing to betray his trust, and in graphic words he painted the idle, self-indulgent nobles of the Court of Toledo, the disaffected sons of the late King Wittiza with whom he was already in communication, the pleasure-bound Rodrigo, a mere sensual imitation of the warrior of his youthful days. Between treachery and weakness Spain was an easy prey for hawks swift on the wing.

Then Musa, listening, stroked his beard and answered :

‘“‘ The plot stands well in words but the risk is great. What pledge have I, Count, of the honesty of thine intentions? ”’

Then the Governor of Ceuta swore that to prove his words he would himself lead a marauding expedition of Moslem Africans against the Spanish coast, and so he did and brought back spoil. And Musa, when he saw the spoil, distrusted the Count no more, for he realised that the lust of revenge was stronger in him than patriotism, or honour, or the love of his faith.

In this way, legend tells us, Ceuta was betrayed into the hands of the Moslems, and, led by Tarik, one of Musa’s generals, a red-haired Berber, the brown-skinned horsemen crossed the Straits, set ‘‘like a diamond between two emeralds and two sapphires, the imaster-stone in the ring of Empire.’’

When they landed on the opposite shore, they captured amongst other prisoners an old woman, who, seeing Tarik, exclaimed:

““My husband has often told me that a foreign general would subdue this realm. Like thee, he should be wide of forehead and upon his left shoulder would be a dark mole.”’

Then the Berber chief laid bare his left shoulder that all might see the mole as the woman had described, and his followers’ hearts burned high with hope. In memory of their general, they called the rock on which they stood ‘‘ Gebel-Tarik,’? or ‘‘The Mountain of Tarik,’’ and in the corrupt form ‘‘ Gibraltar,’’ the key to Southern Spain and the Western Mediterranean, has passed down to history.

From Gibraltar the Moslem army advanced through Spain; and Rodrigo, learning how he had been betrayed by Count Julian, returned in swift wrath from a campaign against the Basques and summoned ll Visigothic nobles to join his banner and defend Christendom. Amongst others came the sons of Wittiza with a vast retinue of serfs, their swords in their hands and protestations of loyalty on their lips.

Rodrigo placed these Princes with their uncle, Bishop Oppas, of Seville, on the right wing of hisarmy, and he himself commanded the centre seated in a litter slung between two mules. Over his head was stretched an awning embroidered with pearls, rubies and emeralds. From his royal seat he could complacently watch his large force winding over the plains, nearly one hundred thousand men, according to the chroniclers; but he could not hear the words of the nobles who rode in the far-distant ranks, muttering amongst themselves as they plotted his downfall.

‘‘ This carrion,’’ exclaimed the sons of Wittiza, ‘‘ has taken possession of the throne unjustly. ... . Let us, as soon as the battle is engaged, give way and leave the Usurper alone to fight the strangers who will soon deliver us from him. When they shall be gone we can place on the throne him who most deserves it.’’

The majority of those who listened applauded, and their treachery exhibits the weakness of Visigothic Spain—the rule of a king dependent on the goodwill of those who coveted the throne they had granted him. Other than the nobles he had no hope, so that, when he left his litter and mounted his milk-white horse Orelia by the banks of the river Guadalete, Rodrigo was already a doomed man. As he saw the hosts 'of Tarik approaching, and recognised the brown-skinned, shagey-haired horsemen with the sunshine gleaming on their curved swords and long spears, he himself cried aloud in dismay:

‘* By the faith of the Messiah, these are the very men I saw painted in the House of Mystery at Toledo.”

“That is the Christian King,’’ said Tarik to his horsemen. ‘‘ Behold the enemy in front, the sea at your back! By Allah, there is no salvation for you save in your courage and perseverance.”

Then he set spurs to his horse, and Rodrigo did the like on his side, and inspired by their leaders the rival armies moved to the attack. At first the Christians held their own; but at a critical moment the sons of Wittiza and Bishop Oppas drew away from the fight—some legends even say they joined the Moors—and so decided the fortune of the day in favour of the Infidel.

‘This was no common conflict,’? wrote the Berber proudly, recounting his victory to Musa, his chief. ‘* It was like the gathering of the tribes at the Day of Judgment.”’

The victory of Guadalete may indeed be reckoned as one of the great battles of the world, for it decided a nation’s fate. The Moors, who pursued the scattered bands of Goths, could meet with little effective resistance from the selfish, disunited nobles, and these for the most part left their lands and tenants to their fate and fled to the northern mountains of Asturias. The rest, the citizen overburdened with taxes, and the oppressed serf or slave, found in their new masters a type of ruler so much kindlier than the old that many abjured their faith and earned freedom by professing Islam. Others, remaining Christian, and despising their weaker brethren as ‘‘renegades,’’ settled down more or less contentedly to life as a subject race. In time their descendants came to form part of the great Mahometan Empire of the West, the Caliphate of Cordova, as luxurious as the Gothic Kingdom it replaced, but far superior in culture and practical knowledge.

Of the fate of Rodrigo it is impossible to glean any trustworthy account. According to some Arab chroniclers, he fell in the battle itself beneath the spear of Tarik. Others say he was drowned in the Guadalete, his steed, Orelia, being found dead on the bank, and beside her a royal sandal studded with precious stones. Yet a third account records that the Christian King escaped to Portugal and died there, since years later a tomb was discovered at Viseo inscribed with the words in Latin:

““Here reposeth Rodrigo, the last King of the Goths.”’ :

Chapter II The Hawk Of Koreysh

Tuts chapter has as its hero not a Spaniard by birth but a Syrian, Abd-Er-Rahman, ‘‘ Son-of-the-Merciful- God,’’ a prince of the Mahometan House of Omayya, that had reigned at Damascus for a hundred years and more. Against this line of rulers there rose in rebellion, in the year 750 A.D., Es-Saffah, ‘‘ The Butcher,’’ proud of his descent from Abbas, uncle of the Prophet, and having gained the victory, seized Abd-Er-Rahman’s grandfather, the Caliph Hisham, cut off a hand and foot, and sent him thus mutilated, seated on an ass, through the towns of Syria, with a herald chanting before him in derision:

“Behold the illustrious lord of the House of Omayya!’’

This act was the signal for a general massacre of

the unfortunate prisoner’s family; but Abd-Er-Rahman, whom Es-Saffah pursued with peculiar hatred because of a popular saying that he would one day avenge his House, succeeded in eluding his enemies and hid with his younger brother and small son in a village on the banks of the Euphrates. ' Here, as he lay one day at noon within the house, shading his eyes from the glare that pained them, the child who played outside rushed into the room, screaming and gesticulating.

‘‘ What aileth thee? What hath frightened thee? ”’

cried his father, and, unable to calm the boy, went himself to the door. There on the outskirts of the scattered tents he saw the black banners of the House of Abbas, and the leader of the troop that bore them questioning the villagers. |

Catching up the child, Abd-Er-Rahman called to his brother, and together they ran down the steep bank at their feet and plunged into the river. The current was fierce, and the younger prince, who was only fourteen, was almost swept away as he lost his foothold.

‘*T cannot swim further,’’ he cried, ‘‘ I must return.”

And the warriors of Es-Saffah, now gathered on the bank, called to him:

‘‘Come back! Be not afraid! Our master will spare your lives.’’ |

‘Trust them not, but struggle still,’ gasped Abd-Er-Rahman: and though burdened with his son, turned to give his brother aid, but the lad was already swimming in his panic to the shore from which he had come.

As the prince climbed up the opposite bank, safe for the moment, he saw his younger brother a prisoner, held down between two Syrian troopers, and then amid shouts of savage triumph the boy’s head severed from his shoulders and raised aloft on spears. From that moment he knew there was no peace to be made with the House of Abbas, and vowing vengeance, set out to seek his fortunes like a prince in a fairy-tale, penniless and alone, save for his son and a faithful servant, Badr, who contrived to join him in hiding.

The chroniclers tell us that at this time Abd-Er- Rahman was tall and slender, with high cheek-bones and reddish hair that he wore parted in two long curls. He eS ee

THE HAWK OF KOREYSH eS, was blind in one eye, but strong and supple, and full of energy and ambition. From infancy he had heard the old women of his tribe prophesy his future greatness, and believing, like most Syrians, in the unalterable decisions of fate, never dreamed, even as a poor refugee, but that he would one day find a home and glory. :

The Governor of Egypt, hoping to establish his own independence, had refused to recognise Es-Saffah, in spite of his victories, as Caliph, or ruler of the entire Mahometan world. Indeed, he had offered a welcome to all the exiled Omayyads, but when the young prince Abd-Er-Rahman appeared at his Court, he looked at him with suspicion, since a Jewish soothsayer had told him that a descendant of the royal family, wearing his hair in two long ringlets, would one day make himself master of North Africa.

‘“ Behold, this is the man!’’ he said to the Jew. “ But it matters not, you will see he will not deprive me of my province, for ere long he will be assassinated,’’

The Jew, who looked favourably on the royal refugee, answered:

““ My lord, the case stands thus . . . . either Abd-Er- Rahman is not the man, and if thou dost slay him thou wilt commit a useless crime, or he is in truth the’ predestined ruler of Africa, and no power of thine can deprive him of life, since destiny is unchangeable. ... Bethink thee well what thou doest!’’

The Governor, frightened of pitting himself against fate, held his hand for a time, and meanwhile Abd-Er-Rahman received a secret warning of the

* possible danger in which he stood, and one night stole away from Court. Hurrying westward, he found protection amid the wild Berber tribes who lived on the edge of the Sahara Desert, and these told him of the wonderful kingdom of Andalus across the seas, and of how it had been conquered by Tarik and was now the prey of rival chiefs, tributaries in name of Caliphs of Damascus, but since Es-Saffah’s rebellion, practically independent.