The Martyrdom of Man, Winwood Reade [best book club books TXT] 📗

who carried out their ideas too well. Venice was not so

much injured by the potentates who assembled at Cambrai as by a

single man who lived in a lonely spot on the south-west coast

of the Spanish peninsula.

 

That country had been taken from the natives by the

Carthaginians, from the Carthaginians by the Romans, from the

Romans by the Goths, from the Goths by the Arabs and the Moors.

It was the first province of the Holy Empire of the Caliphs to

shake itself free, and to crown a monarch of its own. The Arabs

raised Spain to a height of prosperity which it has never since

attained; they covered the land with palaces, mosques,

hospitals, and bridges; and with enormous aqueducts which,

penetrating the sides of mountains, or sweeping on lofty arches

across valleys, rivalled the monuments of ancient Rome. The

Arabs imported various tropical fruits and vegetables, the

culture of which has departed with them. They grew, prepared,

and exported sugar. They discovered new mines of gold and

silver, quicksilver and lead. They extensively manufactured

silks, cottons, and merino woollen goods, which they despatched

to Constantinople by sea, and which were thence diffused

through the valley of the Danube over savage Christendom. When

Italians began to navigate the Mediterranean, a line of ports

was opened to them from Tarragona to Cadiz. The metropolis of

this noble country was Cordova. It stood in the midst of a

fertile plain washed by the waters of the Guadalquivir. It was

encircled by suburban towns; there were ten miles of lighted

streets. The great mosque was one of the wonders of the

mediaeval world; its gates embossed with bronze; its myriads of

lamps made out of Christian bells; and its thousand columns of

variegated marble supporting a roof of richly carved and

aromatic wood. At a time when books were so rare in Europe that

the man who possessed one often gave it to a church, and placed

it on the altar pro remedio animae suae, to obtain remission of

his sins; at a time when three or four hundred parchment

scrolls were considered a magnificent endowment for the richest

monastery: when scarcely a priest in England could translate

Latin into his mother tongue; and when even in Italy a monk who

had picked up a smattering of mathematics was looked upon as a

magician, here was a country in which every child was taught to

read and write; in which every town possessed a public library;

in which book collecting was a mania; in which cotton and

afterwards linen-paper was manufactured in enormous quantities;

in which ladies earned distinction as poets and grammarians,

and in which even the blind were often scholars; in which men

of science were making chemical experiments, using astrolabes

in the observatory, inventing flying machines, studying the

astronomy and algebra of Hindustan.

 

When the Goths conquered Spain they were reconquered by the

clergy, who established or revived the Roman Law. But to that

excellent code they added some special enactments relating to

pagans, heretics, and Jews. With nations as with individuals,

the child is often the father of the man; intolerance, which

ruined the Spain of Philip, was also its vice, in the Gothic

days. On the other hand, the prosperity of Spain beneath the

Arabs was owing to the tolerant spirit of that people. Never

was a conquered nation so mercifully treated. The Christians

were allowed by the Arab laws free exercise of their religion.

They were employed at court; they held office; they served in

the army. The caliph had a bodyguard of twelve thousand men;

picked troops, splendidly equipped; and a third of these were

Christians. But there were some ecclesiastics who taught their

congregations that it was sinful to be tolerated. There were

fanatics who, when they heard the cry of the muezzin, “There is

no God but God, and Mohammed is the messenger of God,” would

sign the cross upon their foreheads and exclaim in a loud

voice, “Keep not thou silence, O God, for lo! thine enemies make

a tumult, and they that hate thee have lifted up the head”; and

so they would rush into the mosque, and disturb the public

worship, and announce that Mohammed was one of the false

prophets whom Christ had foretold. And when such blasphemers

were put to death, which often happened on the spot, there was

an epidemic of martyr-suicide such as that which excited the

wonder and disgust of the younger Pliny. And soon both the

contumacy of the Christians and the evil passions of the

Moslems, which that contumacy excited, were increased by causes

from without. When Spain had first been conquered, a number of

Gothic nobles, too proud to submit on any terms, retreated to

the Asturias, taking with them the sacred relics from Toledo.

They found a home in mountain ravines clothed with chestnut

woods, and divided by savage torrents foaming and gnashing on

the stones. Here the Christians established a kingdom,

discovered the bones of a saint which attracted pilgrims from

all parts of Europe, and were joined from time to time by

foreign volunteers, and by the disaffected from the Moorish

towns.

 

The Caliph of Cordova was a Commander of the Faithful: he

united the spiritual and temporal powers in his own person: he

was not the slave of Mamelukes or Turkish guards. But he had

the right of naming his successor from a numerous progeny, and

this custom gave rise, as usual, to seraglio intrigue and civil

war. The empire broke up into petty states, which were engaged

in continual feuds with one another. Thus the Christians were

enabled to invade the Moslem territory with success. At first

they made only plundering forays; next they took castles by

surprise or by storm and garrisoned them strongly; and then

they began slowly to advance upon the land. By the middle of

the ninth century they had reached the Douro and the Ebro. By

the close of the eleventh they had reached the Tagus under the

banner of the Cid. In the thirteenth century the kingdom of

Granada alone was left. But that kingdom lasted two hundred

years. Its existence was preserved by causes similar to those

which had given the Christians their success. Portugal,

Arragon, Leon, and Castile were more jealous of one another

than of the Moorish kingdom. Granada was unaggressive; and at

the same time it belonged to the European family. There was a

difference in language, religion, and domestic institutions

between Moslem and Christian Spain; yet the manners and mode of

thought in both countries were the same. The cavaliers of

Granada were acknowledged by the Spaniards to be “gentlemen,

though Moors.” The Moslem knight cultivated the sciences of

courtesy and music, fought only with the foe on equal terms,

esteemed it a duty to side with the weak and to succour the

distressed, mingled the name of his mistress with his Allah

Akbar! as the Christians cried, Ma Dame et mon Dieu! wore in

her remembrance an embroidered scarf or some other gage of

love, mingled with her in the graceful dance of the Zambra,

serenaded her by moonlight as she looked down from the balcony.

Granada was defended by a cavalry of gallant knights, and by an

infantry of sturdy mountaineers. But it came to its end at

last. The marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella united all the

crowns of Spain. After eight centuries of almost incessant war,

after three thousand seven hundred battles, the long crusade

was ended; Spain became once more a Christian land; and

Boabdil, pausing on the Hill of Tears, looked down for the last

time on the beautiful Alhambra, on the city nestling among rose

gardens, and the dark cypress waving over Moslem tombs. His

mother reproached him for weeping as a woman for the kingdom he

had not defended as a man. He rode down to the sea and crossed

over into Africa. But that country also was soon to be invaded

by the Christians.

 

That part of the Peninsula which is called Portugal preserved

its independence and its dialect from the encroachments of

Castile. While the kingdom of Granada was yet alive, the

Portuguese monarch, having driven the Moors from the banks of

the Tagus, resolved to pursue them into Africa. He possessed an

excellent crusade machinery, and naturally desired to apply it

to some purpose. In Portugal were troops of military monks, who

had sworn to fight with none but unbelievers. In Portugal were

large revenues granted or bequeathed for that purpose alone. In

Portugal the passion of chivalry was at its height; the throne

was surrounded by knights panting for adventure. It is related

that some ladies of the English court had been grossly insulted

by certain cavaliers, and had been unable to find champions to

redress their wrongs. An equal number of Portuguese knights at

once took ship, sailed to London, flung down their gauntlets,

overthrew their opponents in the lists, and returned to Lisbon

having received from the injured ladies the tenderest proof of

their gratitude and esteem.

 

It seems that already there had risen between Portugal and

England that diplomatic friendship which has lasted to the pre

sent day. A commerce of wine for wool was established between

the ports of the Tagus and the Thames; and with this commerce

the pirates of Ceuta continually interfered. Ceuta was one of

the pillars of Hercules: it sat opposite Gibraltar, and

commanded the straits. The King of Portugal prepared a fleet;

great war-galleys were built having batteries of mangonels or

huge crossbows, with winding gear, stationed in the bow; great

beams, like battering rams; swung aloft; and jars of quicklime

and soft soap to fling in the faces of the enemy. The fleet

sailed forth, rustling with flags, beating drums, and, blowing

Saracen horns; the passage to Ceuta was happily made; the

troops were landed, and the pirate city taken by assault.

 

Among those who distinguished themselves in this exploit was

the Prince Henry, a younger son of the king. He was not only a

brave knight, but also a distinguished scholar; his mind had

been enriched by a study of the works of Cicero, Seneca, and

Pliny, and by the Latin translations of the Greek geographers.

He now stepped on that mysterious continent which had been

closed to Christians for several hundred years. He questioned

the prisoners respecting the interior. They described the rich

and learned cities of Morocco: the Atlas mountains, shining

with snow and the sandy desert on their southern side. It was

there the ancients had supposed all life came to an end. But

now the Prince received the astounding intelligence that beyond

the Sahara was a land inhabited entirely by negroes; covered

with fields of corn and cotton watered by majestic rivers, on

the banks of which rose cities as large as Morocco, or Lisbon,

or Seville. In that country were gold mines of prodigious

wealth; it was also a granary of slaves. By land it could be

reached in a week from Morocco by a courier mounted on the

swift dromedary of the desert, which halted not by day or

night. There were regular caravans or camel-fleets, which

passed to and fro at certain seasons of the year. The Black

Country, as they called it, could also be reached by sea. If

ships sailed along the desert shore towards the south, they

would arrive at the mouths of wide rivers, which flowed down

from the gold-bearing hills.

 

This conversation decided Prince Henry’s career. To discover

this new world beyond the desert became the object of his life.

He was Grand Master of the Order of Christ, and had ample

revenues at his disposal and he considered himself justified in

expending them on this enterprise which would result in the

conversion of many thousand pagans to the Christian faith. He

retired to a castle near Cape St. Vincent, where