The Story of Moors in Spain. Stanley Lane-Poole
as "Knights of Granada, Gentlemen, albeit Moors:"
| Caballeros Granadinos |
| Aunque Moros hijos d'algo. |
Meanwhile Tārik had pressed on to Toledo, the capital of the Goths. He was seeking for the Gothic nobles. At Cordova he had looked to meet them, but they had fled: at Toledo, which the Jews delivered into his hands, the nobles were not to be found; they had fled further, and taken refuge in the mountains of the Asturias. Traitors, like the family of Witiza and Count Julian, alone remained, and these were rewarded with posts of government. The rest of the nobility had disappeared; the country was abandoned to the Moors. Spain had become, in fact, a province of the vast empire of the Arab Khalifs, who held their court at Damascus and swayed an empire that stretched from the mountains of India to the pillars of Hercules. What remained to be done towards the pacification of Spain was effected by Mūsa, who, when he heard of Tārik's continued career of success, sailed in all haste across the Straits, followed by his Arabs, to take his full share of the glory. He crossed in the summer of 712 with eighteen thousand men, and, after reducing Carmona, Seville, and Merida, joined Tārik at Toledo. The meeting between the conqueror and his superior officer was not friendly. Tārik went forth to receive the governor of the West with all honour, but Mūsa struck him with a whip, overwhelmed him with reprimands for exceeding his instructions, and, declaring that it was impossible to entrust the safety of the Moslems to such rash and impetuous leading, threw him into prison. When this act of jealous tyranny came to the ears of the Khalif Welīd he summoned Mūsa to Damascus, and restored Tārik to his command in Spain.
Before returning to Syria, Mūsa had stood upon the Pyrenees and seen a vision of European conquest. His recall interrupted his further advance; but others soon pushed forward. An Arab governor, as early as 719, occupied the southern part of Gaul, called Septimania, with the cities of Carcasonne and Narbonne, and from these centres he began to make raids upon Burgundy and Aquitania. Eudes, Duke of Aquitania, administered a total defeat to the Saracens under the walls of Toulouse in 721, but this only diverted their course more to the west. They sacked Beaune, exacted tribute from Sens, seized Avignon in 730, and made numerous raids upon the neighbouring districts. The new governor of Narbonne, Abd-er-Rahmān, resolved upon the conquest of all Gaul. He had already checked the operations of Eudes, who presumed, after his victory at Toulouse, to carry the war into the Saracens' country; and now he attacked the Tarraconaise, and boldly invaded Aquitaine, defeated Eudes on the banks of the Garonne, captured Bordeaux by assault, and in 732 marched on in triumph towards Tours, where he had heard of the treasures of the Abbey of St. Martin. Between Poictiers and Tours he was met by Charles, the son of Pepin the Heristal, then virtual King of France, for the feeble Merovingian sovereign, Lothair, had no voice to oppose the will of his powerful Mayor of the Palace. The Saracens went joyfully to the fight. They expected a second field of the Guadalete, and looked to see fair France their prey from Calais to Marseilles. An issue momentous for Europe was to be decided, and the conflict that ensued has rightly been numbered among the fifteen decisive battles of the world. The question to be judged by force of arms was whether Europe was to be Christian or Mohammedan—whether the future Nôtre Dame was to be a church or a mosque—perhaps even whether St. Paul's, when it came to be built, should echo the chant of the Agnus Dei or the muttered prayers of Islam. Had not the Saracens been checked at Tours there is no reason to suppose that they would have stopped at the English Channel. But, as fate decreed, the tide of Mohammedan invasion had reached its limit, and the ebb was about to set in. Charles and his Franks were no emasculate race like the Romanized Spaniards and Goths. They were at least as hardy and valorous as the Moors themselves, and their magnificent stature gave them an advantage which could not fail to tell. Six days were spent in partial engagements, and then on the seventh came a general medley. Charles cut through the ranks of the Moslems with irresistible might, dealing right and left such ponderous blows that from that day he was called Charles Martel, "Karl of the Hammer." His Frankish followers, inspired by their leader's prowess, bore down upon the Saracens with crushing force; and the whole array of the Moslems broke and fled in utter rout. The spot was long and shudderingly known in Andalusia by the name of the "Pavement of Martyrs."
The danger to Western Europe was averted. So crushing was the disaster that the Moors of Spain never again, during all the centuries that they ruled in the south, attempted to invade France. They retained, indeed, their hold of Narbonne and the districts bordering the northern slopes of the Pyrenees for some time longer (until 797), and even ventured upon foraying raids into Provence. But here their ambition ceased. The battle of Tours had once for all vindicated the independence of France, and set a bound to the Moslem conquests. Like the swelling tide of the sea, the Saracen hordes had poured over the land; and now, through the Hammerer of the Franks, a voice had spoken: "Hitherto shalt thou come and no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed."
On the other hand, the kings of France were so deeply impressed with the courage of their Moslem neighbours, that, though they too delighted in occasional forays, once only did they attempt the subjugation of Spain. Charlemagne, the second Alexander, could not contemplate with composure the immunity of the Moslem power on the other side of the Pyrenees. As a good Christian he was pledged to extirpate the infidel; and, as an imperial conqueror, the existence of the independent kingdom of Andalusia was hateful to his pride. His opportunity came at last—when the accession of the first Spanish prince of the Omeyyad stock roused the hostility of some of the factions which were always prone to revolt in Spain. Charlemagne was invited to interfere and drive out the usurper. The Spanish chroniclers make Alfonso, King of the Asturias and heir of Pelagius,6 summon the Frankish emperor to his aid; but there is more reason to believe that the invitation came from certain disappointed Moslem chiefs, who could not brook the authority of Abd-er-Rahmān the Omeyyad, and who were ready to submit even to the sworn enemy of Islam, rather than recognize the new ruler. The moment of their appeal was propitious; Charlemagne had just completed, as he thought, the subjugation of the Saxons; their chief Wittekind had been banished, and thousands of his followers were coming to Paderborn to be baptized. The conqueror's hands were thus free to turn to other schemes of victory. It was arranged that he should invade Spain, while the factious Moslem chiefs should make diversions in his favour at three different points. Fortunately for the newly-founded dynasty of Cordova, this formidable coalition came to naught. The allies in Spain miscalculated their time, and fell to blows with one another; and when Charlemagne crossed the Pyrenees in 777, he found himself unsupported. He began the siege of Zaragoza, when news was brought him that Wittekind had returned and raised the Saxons, who were again in arms, and had advanced as far as Cologne. There was nothing for it but to hurry back and defend his dominions. He rapidly retraced his steps, and the main part of his army had already crossed the mountains when disaster overtook the rear in the Pass of Roncesvalles. The Basques, who nourished an eternal hatred against the Franks, had laid a skilful ambuscade among the rocky defiles of the Pyrenees, and, allowing the advanced part of the army to march through, waited till the rear-guard, encumbered with baggage, began slowly to thread its way through the pass. Then they fell upon it hip and thigh, so that scarcely a Frank escaped. The Christian chroniclers tell terrible tales of the slaughter done that day. According to them it was the Saracens, side by side with the knights of Leon, who wrought this havoc upon King Charles. We read in the old Spanish ballad how the legendary hero Bernardo del Carpio led the chivalry of Leon to the massacre of the Frankish host:
| With three thousand men of Leon from the city Bernard goes, |
| To protect the soil Hispanian from the spear of Frankish foes; |
| From the city which is planted in the midst between the seas, |
| To preserve the name and glory of old Pelayo's victories. |
| Free were we born, 'tis thus they cry, though to our king we owe |
|
The homage and the fealty |