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121

CHAPTER XII.

THE MOSLEM CONQUEST.

(711-788).

I.-Taric.

THE story of the Mohammedan conquest of Spain is in itself a romance. Nor is it surprising that so sudden and so startling an overthrow should have been productive of many and strange legends among the vanquished Visigoths. When the rude discipline of adversity had developed a new spirit in the new nation that was formed in the hospitable mountains of the northwest, the bravery of the sons was attributed to the fathers in many a glowing tale. But Alfonso ruled over a handful of free Spaniards. Roderic had been followed by a mixed multitude of slaves. The romance of the invasion has been sung by Christian poets; yet the glory of the conquest—and it was the glory of easy victory-was wholly on the side of Islam The hero of the story is the gallant Taric, whose name, less celebrated than that of his contemptible antagonist, lives, and will ever live embedded in that of the great rock on whose shore he first landed in Spain,2 and which has, for nigh on two hundred years, formed one of the most cherished possessions of Spain's greatest and only rival for the empire of the world.

Nothing could have been less ambitious than the first steps of the Arabs towards the conquest of Spain. Invited or not by Count Julian, a little band of some five hundred marauders, under the Arab Tarif, crossed the straits from Africa in four small vessels, and landed at the spot where the delightful town of Tarifa perpetuates the name and the memory of the leader of the band. Tarif plundered Carteia, or Algeciras, and having

1 A Tuerto, like Hannibal, and Sertorius, and the first Abdur Rahman.

2 Gebel Taric-the hill of Taric=Gibraltar,

explored, without opposition, and with much success in the way of plunder, the surrounding country, he returned to Africa, bringing with him welcome news of the riches and the defenceless condition of the land to the north of the straits. Thus informed and encouraged, Muşa, the Vali or governor of Arab Tingitana, gave his consent to another foray, greedy of further spoils. And so it came to pass that in the ever memorable year 711, a little army of Berbers and Arabs, led by a subordinate general, Taric, who had been entrusted with the conduct of the expedition, landed at the foot of the rock of Calpe. King Roderic was in the north of the Peninsula, but he hastened to the defence of his kingdom. The result we all know. An army of sixty thousand men, headed by the sovereign in person, and with every advantage of locality, of supply, of means of transport, was promptly routed by a band of Moslem marauders. Taric saw the greatness of his opportunity. He divided his little army into three bands, and pressed forward to overrun the entire Peninsula of Spain.

The invasion was crowned with the most astonishing success. City after city opened its gates at the summons of the Moor, and in a few months from his victory on the banks of the Guadalete, the kingdom of the Visigoths had ceased to exist.

1 For, an exhaustive review of the various dates assigned to the landing of Taric, see Gayangos, vol. i., pp. 521-2, and notes. Don Pascual sums up as follows: "I may, therefore, advance without fear of contradiction, that the landing of Taric on the rock of Gibraltar, took place on Thursday, 30th of April, A.D. 711 (8th Rejeb, A.H. 92)”.

2 The Guadalete-the Chrysos of the Greeks and Romans--is a little river that flows near the modern town of Xerez. The etymology of Guadalete is very uncertain: Guada, or Wady, is simple enough: but whether lete is the Greek Lethe, as Lope de Vega and Southey would suggest, or an extraordinary development of Beker, by which name, according to Makkari, the river was known to the Arabs, and which survives in the modern Beger de la Frontera, a village near the Laguna de Janda, or whether it is simply leded delight, the critics are unable to determine. See Gayangos, i., 524-6, and notes 63, 66, and 67; Dozy, Recherches, i., 314-316; Casiri, ii., 183; España Sagrada, ix., 53; Lope de Vega, Jerusalem Conquistada, lib. vi., 136; Southey, Don Roderic, note ad hoc; Ford (1878), 330. Don Pascual Gayangos considers that the engagement took place nearer Medina Sidonia than Xerez, i.e., nearer the landing-place of the invader.

Since this chapter and note were written, my attention has been called to a notice of a work Estudios sobre la invasion de los Arabes en España, by D. Eduardo Saavedra (Madrid, 1893), in which it is maintained-and according to Señor Riaño, with complete success-that the battle which decided the fate of Spain was fought, not in 711, but in 714, not on the banks of the Guadalete, but on the Barbate, near Medina Sidonia. I have not, unfortunately, been able to procure the book up to the moment of going to press. Anything that Señor Riaño writes is worthy of respect, and I must only refer to his review in The Athenæum (No. 3427), of July,

Taric had been reinforced shortly before the battle by some 5000 Berbers,

A Moorish captain, at the head of but 700 Berbers, surprised and occupied Cordova. Archidona, Malaga, Elvira, all surrendered to the Arab. Taric pressed on to Toledo. The Gothic nobility fled at his approach, and the royal city opened her gates to the invader. Such was the eagerness of submission and treaty, that the governor of Cordova is recorded as the only chief who fell, without conditions, a prisoner into the hands of the Saracens

The bishops disappeared. The people were indifferent. Spain was abandoned to the Arab. It was something more than a conquest. It was a social revolution. The Jews were avenged of their persecutors. The slave was set free. The old things indeed had passed away. All things had as in a moment become new. What was the long struggle of the barbarian hosts three centuries before to the lightning success of this handful of invaders?

In the early summer of 712, Musa, jealous of the splendid and all unexpected success of his lieutenant, crossed the straits with an army of 18,000 20,000 men, and marched northwards to join Taric at Toledo Carmona, Seville and many other cities promptly submitte at his summons. The reduction of Merida alone delayed for a moment the progress of his arms. But honourable terms of capitulation were soon accepted, and Merida enjoyed the clemency of the victors.

The meeting between Musa and Taric is said to have been stormy and acrimonious. But no military jealousy induced the Arab to check in any way the career of conquest upon which his Moorish lieutenant had already entered. Invested with a more ample authority, Taric was suffered to continue his northward march, and he hastened to the siege and capture of Saragossa, no longer to be Cæsarea Augusta, but Medina Saracusta, at all times a brave and noble city. Thus the wave of Moslem conquest spread unchecked over the country. Not even at remote Astorga did the fugitive Visigoths stand against the invader. The province retained its independence, but the capital submitted at the approach of Taric, in the early spring of 713; while Musa, taking an easterly course, reduced Huesca, Lerida, Tarragona, Barcelona and Gerona. Nor would the Pyrenees have been the limit of Musa's victorious career, had

but his entire force did not exceed 12,000 men. The army under Roderic is variously estimated at 60,000 or 90,000 men. Taric, like so many other invaders, is said to have burned his ships as soon as he had landed on the shores of Spain.

[graphic]

1 Gibbon, chapter li,

not a messenger from the Caliph met him at Lugo in Gallicia, with orders to repair at once to Damascus. He heard but to obey; and leaving his eldest son, Abdul Aziz, to administer Spain in his absence, the Amir turned his horse's head sadly to the southward, and submitted himself to the will of the Commander of the Faithful.

Abdul Aziz, on the departure of his father, was opposed with but little success in southern Spain by Theodemir, a Christian noble, who had assumed, on the death of Roderic, the title of king of the Visigoths. Completely defeated and driven from his vantage ground among the hills of Murcia, Theodemir fled for refuge to the fortified town of Orihuela. Fortifications he found-but no garrison; walls-but no defenders. None but the women were left in the city, and boldly did these Murcian ladies play their part. Dressed and armed like soldiers, these gallant dames took their places on the battlements; and the advancing Moors, deceived by the brave show of defenders, accorded to Theodemir honourable terms of capitulation. pleased indeed was Abdul Aziz with the boldness of the stratagem, and at the confidence displayed by Theodemir, who had entered his camp, attended only by a single page, to seek favourable conditions of peace, that he recognised the Gothic chieftain as titular king or governor of all Murcia, a province ever after known to the Arabs as Theodemir's land, or the country of Tadmir.1

So

Abdul Aziz held his court at Seville: and his marriage with the beautiful Egilona, who was certainly a Christian, and who is said to have been the widow of Roderic, gave striking proof of the liberality of his feelings towards the subject race. Egilona was permitted to retain her own religion; and the unaccustomed honour in which she was held by her husband and his courtiers is said to have aroused the indignation of many true believers.

But if the conquerors were considerate to the conquered, the Commander of the Faithful was merciless to the conquerors.

1 Four hundred years after the death of Theodemir, his territories of Murcia and Carthagena are called by Al Edrisi (154-6) by the name of Tadmir. Bourguignon d'Anville, Etats formés en Europe, etc. (1771), tom. iii., p. 174; Gibbon, chap. li.; Gayangos, ii., 30, 31. Casiri causes some confusion by translating Tadmir as if it were the Arabic word Palmir, and making Murcia not the land of Theodemir, but the land of palms. The treaty was signed 4 Rajab, A.H. 94equivalent to 13th April, 713. The boundaries of the Gothic province would seem to have included not only Alicante and Valencia, but Orihuela. See Gayangos, ii., 30, 31; Lafuente, iii., 33, 34.

Fortune has ever been most fickle in the East. Taric the Berber was the hero of the conquest of Spain; and he deserved the gratitude and support of the Caliph; and Taric, though recalled, was not unjustly treated. But Musa the Arab found scant justice and no mercy at the hands of his sovereign. Within a few days of his arrival at Damascus, he was deprived of his command, stripped of his wealth, reviled, beaten, disgraced. Nay, more, the sins of the father were visited upon the innocent son, and the amiable Abdul Aziz met his death in his palace at Seville, at the hands of a dark messenger from Damascus.1

In the place of the unhappy Musa, and on the death of his yet more unhappy son, the Caliph appointed Abdur Rahman,2 the Arab, to be Amir or governor of Spain in 721. This able and vigorous ruler distinguished himself from the first, not only by his strict justice, but by the indulgence that he showed to the conquered Christians. He replaced certain venal and oppressive Cadis by judges of probity and honour, and showed himself, we are told, more particularly scrupulous in confirming the Christians in the peaceful possession of their old places of worship. In every department of the state he proved himself honest, vigorous and enlightened. At length having established his government, not without having had to overcome much factious opposition at home, he sought to win greater glory abroad; and he carried his victorious forces across the Pyrenees, and overran the fertile plains of Gaul. A defeat under the walls of Toulouse did not check the onward course of the Moslems, who occupied successively Narbonne, Carcassonne, Beziers, Magalona, Nismes, Lyons; and penetrated even as far as Autun in Burgundy. But the ever famous victory of Charles Martel between Poictiers and Tours, in 732, over a mixed host of Arabs and Berbers, checked for ever the career of Islam in north-western Europe.3

1 Gayangos, ii., 30, 31, and Appendix A.

2 He must not be compared with the Ommeyad Abdur Rahman, first Amir of Cordova, in 755.

3 The vanity of the Gallic writers has magnified the success of Charles Martel over a plundering expedition of the Spanish Arabs (732), into a marvellous victory and attributed the deliverance of Europe from the Saracen yoke to the valour of the Franks. But it was the defeat of the great army of Saracens before Constantinople by Leo III. (718), which first averted the torrent of Mohammedan conquest; although Europe refuses her gratitude to the iconoclastic hero who averted the greatest religious, political and ethnological revolution with which she has ever been threatened. Finlay's Hist. of Greece, ii., 19. See on the same point, Bury, Later Roman Empire; Guizot, Hist. of France, tom. i., chap. ix., and Ranke, Hist. of the Reformation in Germany, i., p. 5.

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