Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/429

285 ment. THE SPANISH ARABS. 285 distributed, accordino; to the subjects, in various chapter . . VIII. apartments of his palace ; and which, if we may credit the Arabian historians, amounted to six hun- dred thousand volumes. -'^ If all this be thought to savour too much of east- inteiiectua. a develope- ern hyperbole, still it cannot be doubted that an amazing number of writers swarmed over the Pen- insula at this period. Casiri's multifarious cata- logue bears ample testimony to the emulation, with which not only men, but even women of the high- est rank, devoted themselves to letters ; the latter contending publicly for the prizes, not merely in eloquence and poetry, but in those recondite studies which have usually been reserved for the other sex. The prefects of the provinces, emulating their mas- ter, converted their courts into academies, and dis- pensed premiums to poets and philosophers. The stream of royal bounty awakened life in the remot- est districts. But its effects were especially visible in the capital. Eighty free schools were opened in Cordova. The circle of letters and science was publicly expounded by professors, whose reputation for wisdom attracted not only the scholars of Chris- tian Spain, but of France, Italy, Germany, and the British Isles. For this period of brilliant illumina- tion with the Saracens corresponds precisely with that of the deepest barbarism of Europe ; when a library of three or four hundred volumes was a magnificent endowment for the richest monastery ; 20 Casiri, Bibliotheca Escuria- de, Dominacion de los Arabes, lensis, torn. ii. pp. 38, 202. — Con- part. 2, cap. 88.