History

Iberia was the name given to Spain by the ancient Greeks, and the country about the mouth of the Guadalquiver is generally understood to have been the Tarshish of Scripture. It was early colonized by the Phoenicians, but little was known of it until the first war between Rome and Carthage, 264 B. C., when Spanish troops served in the Carthaginian armies. Hamilcar, Hasdrubal and Hannibal cultivated the friendship of Spain. They encouraged marriages between their soldiers and officers and the native women, and even Hannibal married a Spanish woman. The warlike population and the great mineral wealth were by these leaders turned to good account in their warfare with Rome.

Hamilcar founded New Carthage, now Cartagena. After the destruction of Carthage by the Romans 146 B. C., Spain was conquered and became a Roman province, though insurrections were frequent.

When Alaric sacked Rome in 409 A. D. the Suevi, Alani and Vandals swept over Spain and brought it to the lowest depth of misery. About 415, the Visigoths, as Roman allies, swept out these tribes and established an independent empire which lasted until the fall of Roderick 711 A.D., the last of the Gothic kings.

"Spain under its Gothic kings may have been a fairly well governed country, but long before the end came there must have been. languor and decay among its people. Anything like a vigorous national resistance seems to have been too much for the Spaniards, enervated as they were by long familiarity with Roman civilization."

Spain at this time contained many Jews who had done much in building up its trade and industry with other countries.

In the old times under Visigothic rule these people had greatly prospered, but the leniency that had been shown to them was succeeded by atrocious persecution, when the Visigoths abandoned their Arianism and became orthodox. The most inhuman ordinances were issued against them -- a law was enacted condemning them all to be slaves. It was not to be wondered at that when the Saracen invasion took place the Jews did whatever they could to promote its success. They, like the Arabs, were an Oriental people; both traced their lineage to Abraham, their common ancestor; both were believers in the unity of God. It was their defense of that doctrine that had brought upon them the hatred of their Visigothic masters." [Draper's " Conflict of Science and Religion."]

As early as 709 the Moors made forays into Spain and discovered its fascinating weakness.

Count Julian, one of Roderic's captains, feeling that he had been wronged by the king, sought revenge, and plotted with the Moslems for the invasion of the country and the overthrow of the Gothic power. The proposition was referred to the caliph, who gave it his approval.

"The Khalif Alwalid next authorized the invasion of Europe, the conquest of Andalusia, or the Region of the Evening. Musa, his general, found, as had so often been the case elsewhere, two effective allies, sectarianism and treason -- the Archbishop of Toledo and Count Julian, the Gothic general."

"Tarik, a lieutenant of the emir, was sent across the Straits with the van of the army. He landed on the rock, called in memory of his name, Gibraltar, April, A. D- 7 11 - In the battle that ensued, a part of Roderic's troops, together with the Archbishop of Toledo, consummated their treasonable compact and deserted to the Arabs; the rest were panic-stricken."

"With great rapidity, Tarik, the lieutenant of Musa, pushed forward from the battle-field to Toledo, and thence northward. On the arrival of Musa the reduction of the Spanish peninsula was completed, and the wreck of the Gothic army driven beyond the Pyrenees into France. Considering the conquest of Spain as 'only the first step in his victories, he announced his intention of forcing his way into Italy and preaching the unity of God in the Vatican. Thence he would march to Constantinople, and having put an end to the Roman Empire and Christianity, would pass into Asia and lay his victorious sword on the footstool of the khalif at Damascus.

"But this was not to be. Musa, envious of his lieutenant Tarik, had treated him with great indignity. The friends of Tarik at the court of the khalif found means of retaliation. An envoy from Damascus arrested Musa in his camp; he was carried before his sovereign, disgraced by a public whipping, and died of a broken heart.

"Under other leaders, however, the Saracen conquest of France was attempted. In a preliminary campaign the country from the mouth of the Garonne to that of the Loire was secured Then Abderrahman, the Saracen commander, dividing his forces into two columns, with one on the east, passed the Rhone and laid siege to Arles. A Christian army, attempting the relief of the place, was defeated with heavy loss. His western column, equally successful, passed the Dordogne, defeated another Christian army, inflicting on it such dreadful loss that according to its own fugitives 'God alone could number the slain.' All Central France was now overrun; the banks of the Loire were reached; the churches and monasteries were despoiled of their treasures.

"The progress of the invaders was at length stopped by Charles Martel (A. D. 732). Between Tours and Poictiers a great battle, which lasted seven days, was fought. Abderrahman was killed, the Saracens retreated and soon afterward were compelled to re-cross the Pyrenees. The banks of the Loire, therefore, mark the boundary of the Mohammedan advance in Western Europe. [Draper's Intellectual Development of Europe]

It was not the generalship of Charles Martel which saved Europe from further invasion so much as the internal dissensions that sprang up among the Saracens themselves. During the tenth century violent civil wars occurred among them, and at one time there were three caliphs residing in as many different cities. Christian Europe found its safeguard in the quarrels of the rival potentates. After the battle of Tours the Saracens fell back to the peninsula, the greater part of which they occupied and brought into a high state of cultivation.

Cordova was the capital city of their caliph, who declared himself independent.

For many years the Spanish Moors represented the highest advance of culture and intelligence.

History has done scant justice to them, and science, especially medicine, astronomy and chemistry, owes them a large debt of gratitude.

Cordova

"Scarcely had the Arabs become firmly settled in Spain when they commenced a brilliant career. The Emirs of Cordova distinguished themselves as patrons of learning, and set an example of refinement strongly contrasting with the condition of the native European princes. Cordova, under their administration, boasted of more than two hundred thousand houses and more than a million of inhabitants. After sunset, a man might walk through it in a straight line for ten miles by the light of the public lamps. Seven hundred years after this time there was not so much as one public lamp in London. Cordova's streets were solidly paved. In Paris, centuries subsequently, whoever stepped over his threshold on a rainy day stepped up to his ankles in mud."

In whatever direction we may look we meet, in the various pursuits of peace and war, of letters and of science, Saracenic vestiges. Our dictionaries tell us that such is the origin of admiral, alchemy, alcohol, algebra, cotton, and hundreds of other words."

Globes In Schools

"Almaimon, A. D. 830, had ascertained the size of the earth from the measurement of a degree on the shore of the Red Sea. While the cities of Europe were asserting the flatness of the earth, the Spanish Moors were teaching geography in their common schools from globes. They also promoted many important branches of industry, improved the manufacture of textile fabrics, earthenware, iron and steel. The Toledo sword blades were everywhere prized for their temper. They also introduced inventions of a more ominous kind - gunpowder and artillery. The cannon they used appears to have been made of wrought-iron. But perhaps they more than compensated for these by the introduction of the mariner's compass.

'I join, as doubtless all natural philosophers will do, in the pious prayer of Alhazen (1100 A. D.) that in the day of judgment the All Merciful will take pity on the soul of Abur-Raihan because he was the first of the race of men to construct a table of specific gravity, and I will ask the same for Alhazen himself since he was the first to trace the curvilinear path of the ray of light through the air.

Darwin's Theory Not New

"He upheld the affirmation of those who said man in his progress passes through a definite succession of states, not, however, 'that he was once a bull and was then changed to an ass and afterward into a horse, and after that into an ape, and finally became a man.' This, he says, is only a misrepresentation by the 'common people' of what is really meant. The 'common people' who withstood Alhazen have representatives among us to-day."

Jewish Trade

"From Barcelona and other ports an immense trade with the Levant was maintained, but it was mainly in the hands of the Jews, who, from the first invasion of Spain by Musa, had ever been the firm allies of the Arabs. In the days of their prosperity they maintained a merchant marine of more than a thousand ships. With Constantinople alone they maintained a great trade. It ramified from the Black Sea and East Mediterranean into the interior of Asia to reach the ports of India and China, and extended along the African coast as far as Madagascar. As on so many other occasions, on these affairs they have left their traces. The smallest weight they used in trade was a grain of barley, four of which were equal to one sweet pea, called in Arabic, carat. We still use the grain as our unit of weight, and still speak of gold as being so many carats fine.

"In the middle of the tenth century they were using bills of exchange and writing treatises on the principles of trade and commerce." [Intellectual Development of Europe.]

Pelayo

Northern Spain, with its broken surface, offers many opportunities for strong, defensive positions, where comparatively weak forces may hold out against superior numbers. It is here, that in all ages, the defeated, or those who were too independent to yield, have fled, and to-day the land is inhabited by their descendants, the Basques, an extremely brave, hardy and liberty- loving people. It was to this broken, mountainous region that the Christians, under the leadership of Pelayo, fled from the Saracen invader, seeking refuge in the wilds of Asturias. They found in the Cave of Covadonga a safe retreat, from which they repulsed the Moors with terrible slaughter in 717.

"In Christian Spain the fame of the single battle will endure as long as time shall last; and ' La Cueva de Covadinga,' the cradle of the Monarchy, may be one of the proudest spots on the soil of the peninsula." The fame of the leader and the safe retreat attracted other Christians, and under the wise and cautious leadership of Pelayo they gradually descended into the plains and valleys and annexed the territory as fast as it was abandoned by the Moslems. From this feeble germ grew the kingdom of Leon.

Navarre

South of the Pyrenees and bordering on the Bay of Biscay, at the beginning of the tenth century, was one of the most easily defended portions of the peninsula. The inhabitants had yielded a nominal obedience to the Goths, the Moslems or the Franks, as either party rose to power, but about the year goo Sancho declared it independent and founded the kingdom of Navarre. Through his marriage connections, diplomacy, and skill as a general he was able to extend his boundaries, and took in a large part of what afterward became the kingdom of Aragon. The little kingdom of Navarre is famous as having furnished one of France's greatest rulers, Henry IV.

The dissensions among the Moors and the rise of Charlemagne lost them their possessions in France. Allying himself with the defeated faction of the Moslems, Charlemagne pushed his boundaries as far south into Spain as the Ebro river. One of his armies was compelled to retreat, and suffered a severe defeat (778) at Roncesvalles, where the celebrated Paladin, Roland, or Orlando, of historic myth, was killed.

By 950, in spite of disorder, factional quarrels and petty strife, the Christian kingdoms were well established in the northern half of the peninsula. Their importance was sufficiently felt by the Moslems to secure to them treaties and alliances. For the next five hundred years the history of Spain is a complex and monotonous recital of the little wars of little states, insurrections of ambitious leaders of factions, broken promises and petty jealousies. The Moslems and Christians, alike, were divided into numerous rival factions, and the defeated on either side was glad to ally himself, for the time being, with the prevailing power of the other religion in an attack upon his own brother in the faith.

It was by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella that several of the larger Christian kingdoms of Spain came to be united in purpose, and under a strong religious stimulus rallied in opposition to the Saracens.

Synopsis of Contemporary Events 9AD-1471AD
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