Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/336

 312 SPAIN [HISTORY. treachery and foreign enemies, and left a desolate kingdom to his son Alfonso V. Alfonso succeeded in restoring order, and to his reign are attributed the most important of thefueros, on which were based the local institutions of his kingdom. Rise of Meanwhile a new kingdom had sprung up to the east Navarre, O f Leon, which for a time seemed likely to become the Castile, chief s t a te O f Christian Spain. The district in the western Aragon. Pyrenees bordering on the Bay of Biscay was the most defensible position in the Peninsula. It was there that the Basques had held out against the German invaders, and that the Suevi had found a refuge from the Visigoths. The sovereignty of the Moslems and of the Franks had been in turn acknowledged, but had never been more than nominal. About the beginning of the 10th century Sancho founded here the kingdom of Navarre, and he succeeded in extending his rule as far as the lower Ebro. His means of defence were primitive but efficient. When attacked by the infidels in overwhelming numbers he retired to the inaccessible mountains, and recovered the lost ground as soon as the enemy had turned his back. His grandson, Sancho the Great (970-1035), profited by the disasters which befel Leon. He married the sister of Garcia, count of Castile, and when his brother-in-law fell a victim to a conspiracy he seized the opportunity to avenge his death by annexing the northern portion of his country. In 1034 he picked a quarrel with Bermudo III. (1028-1037), the son and successor of Alfonso V., and conquered eastern Leon as far as the river Cea. More important still were his acquisitions in the south-east of Navarre. Partly by marriage connexions, and partly by the sword, he obtained possession of the counties of Aragon, Sobrarbe, and Ribagorga, which had for years been struggling to maintain their independence against the Mussulman governor of Saragossa. These consider- able territories Sancho divided on his death (1035) among his four sons, and the division is an important event in the history of Spain. Garcia, the eldest, received Navarre, with a small district on the right bank of the Ebro ; Ferdinand, the second son, obtained Castile, with the addition of the district of Palencia, which had been wrested from Leon ; the counties of Ribagorga and Sobrarbe passed to Gonzalo, and that of Aragon to Ramiro, a bastard. The death of Sancho the Great seemed to offer Bermudo III. an opportunity for recovering his lost territories, and he at once collected his forces to attack Ferdinand. In a pitched battle near the river Carrion, Bermudo was defeated and killed, and the conqueror at once annexed Leon with its dependencies Galicia and Asturias to his new kingdom of Castile (1037). The eldest brother, Garcia, resented a change which threatened to deprive Navarre of the pre-eminence which it had enjoyed under his father. To gratify his jealousy he did not scruple to ally himself with the emirs of Saragossa and Tudela. But in the battle of Atapuerca (1054) the unnatural coalition was defeated, Garcia lost his life on the field, and Ferdinand added to Castile the district on the right of the Ebro, leaving the rest of Navarre to his nephew, Sancho IV. Meanwhile Ramiro, equally ambitious and successful, got rid of his brother Gonzales, and seized upon Sobrarbe and Ribagorga to form, with his own inheritance, the kingdom of Aragon. Henceforth the history of Christian Spain centres round the two great states of Castile and Aragon. Leon, much to the disgust of its inhabitants, becomes a province of the former, and Navarre is soon afterwards deprived of independence by its more powerful neighbour. We must now return to the history of the Arabs. Under 'Abd al-Rahmdn II. (822-852), one of the mildest OMAY- YADS , R. a. " n. ' Moham- me(i ' and most cultivated of the Omayyad dynasty, began a period of disorder and anarchy which might have ruined his power if the northern states had been prepared to take advantage of it. Toledo, which had recovered its, independence soon after the " day of the fosse," was not reduced until after a desperate struggle of eight years, and then its fall was mainly due to internal quarrels. More serious was the growing spirit of insubordination among the Christian population of the south. In spite of the tolerance with which they were treated, the priests persisted in preaching against the rule of the infidel. Under the leadership of Eulogius and his friend Alvaro, a fanatical sect was formed which sought to emulate the glory of the early martyrs. So averse was the Govern- ment to resort to persecution that it was only by publicly blaspheming Mohammed that they could bring themselves under the penalties of the law. Eleven persons were put to death for such conduct, who are celebrated in Spanish history as the " martyrs of Cordova." It was in vain that the moderate party denounced their conduct as wanton suicide; the enthusiasts persisted in their defiant conduct. Mohammed (852-866), sterner and more nar- row-minded than his predecessor, was not unwilling to take repressive measures, and the execution of Eulogius, who had been chosen archbishop of Toledo, seems to have checked for a time the thirst for martyrdom. But the movement had succeeded in provoking a feeling of dis- trust between the two religions, and it was difficult to return to the old attitude of easy tolerance. The " rene- gades" found their position altered for the worse, and under Mohammed they were jealously excluded from all the higher offices of state. A series of revolts showed how prevalent was the feel- ing of discontent. The Gothic family of Beni-Casi, which had embraced Mohammedanism in order to advance itself, had become extremely powerful in Aragon. Musa, the head of this family, made himself master of Saragossa, Tudela, and Huesca, concluded a close alliance with Toledo, which had again recovered its independence, and claimed to be the " third king in Spain." Musa's death in 862, in a war with Ordono I. of Oviedo, enabled Mohammed to regain Tudela and Saragossa, but his troops were soon expelled by Musa's sons, and the Beni- Casi, with the help of Alfonso III., were for a long time able to bid defiance to the authority of the emir. About the same time an independent state was formed in the west by Ibn-Merw,in, a renegade of Merida. But by far the most formidable of these risings was that of 'Omar b. Hafsiin, who began as a brigand in the mountains of Andalusia, but whose castle at Bobastro became the centre of all the dissatisfied Christians and renegades of the south. Neither Mohammed nor his son and successor Mondhir (886-888) could reduce this impregnable fortress, and for years 'Omar was the real ruler of Andalusia. His authority was far greater than that of the emirs had ever been; his administration of justice was rude but efficient; and the Arab historians maintain that a girl laden with treasure could in his time cross the mountains in safety. The premature death of Mondhir, a brave and chivalrous prince, gave the succession to his brother 'Abdallah (888- 'Abdallab 902), who ascended the throne at a very critical moment. Not only had the rising of the Christians and renegades assumed an almost national character, but the Arab nobles had taken advantage of the general disorder to assume the independence that was so congenial to them. 'Abd- allah, considering the latter danger the more formidable, sought to gain over the Spaniards, and even offered Ibn Hafsiin the government of Regie, on condition that he would acknowledge himself as sovereign. But the negotiation came to nothing, and the only result was to