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Rh to the study of pure and applied mathematics, and in medicine Spaniards surpassed the Oriental physicians who had learned their art from Persian Christians, and their influence on medieval medical science was profound. Natural science was another subject studied by their doctors, who were also chemists. The Jews followed attentively these systematic achievements of Arab learning, and more especially its progress in physical and natural science. They, too, influenced the rest of the West.

Side by side with all this progress there was a wide and enthusiastic demand for books. This was due to various causes, such as the cursive character of Arabic writing, which might be compared with the labour- saving device of shorthand, and the employment of linen paper from the earliest times, which was cheaper than papyrus or parchment. More- over the peculiarities of Muslim life, without political assemblies, theatres, or academies, which were the characteristic features of Greece and Rome, made books their sole means of instruction. In the early days of the conquest the Mozarabs preserved their Latin traditions in a Latin form; but with the increase of educated people and the demand for men learned in Muslim law there followed the gradual introduction of books, at first only on legal and theological subjects. The renegades took up the study of their newly adopted language and religion with enthusiasm, and their influence gave fresh impetus to the general appetite for reading. The movement was slow and indecisive at first and only reached its height with the advent of 'Abd-ar-Raḥmān III. Thanks to his establishment of peace and order, learned professors, students from every country, skilled copyists, rich dealers and book- sellers, flocked to Cordova until it became the intellectual centre of the West. The Royal Library was already in the reign of Mahomet I one of the best in Cordova, and 'Abd-ar-Raḥmān III added to it. His two sons Mahomet and Ḥakam II shewed their dissatisfaction with their father's library by each forming a separate collection, and in the end Ḥakam II made the three libraries into one vast collection of four hundred thousand volumes. He employed a principal librarian, who had instructions to draw up a catalogue, as well as the best binders, draughtsmen and illuminators. The dispersal of this library at the fall of the Caliphate was a disaster to the West.

Cordova had also its celebrated private libraries. Among women, too, bibliomania because the fashion, and 'Ā'isha, who belonged to the highest society in Cordova, had a notable collection, while women of the lower classes devoted their time to copying the Koran or books of prayers. The Jews, the Mozarabs and the renegades were carried away by the current, and eunuchs acquired considerable learning and even founded libraries.

"The period of these splendid achievements," declares Ribera, the best authority, "was doubtless of short duration. After the rule of Almanzor Cordova was in the throes of civil war, and the Berbers, who