Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/418

274 THE SPANISH ARABS. PART may be considered liberal. Such of the Christians, — '- — as chose, were permitted to remain in the con- quered territory in undisturbed possession of their property. They were allowed to worship in their own way ; to be governed, within prescribed limits, by their own laws ; to fill certain civil offices, and serve in the army ; their women were invited to intermarry with the conquerors ; ^ and, in short, they were condemned to no other legal badge of servitude than the payment of somewhat heavier imposts than those exacted from their Mahometan brethren. It is true the Christians were occa- sionally exposed to suffering from the caprices of despotism, and, it may be added, of popular fanati- cism. ^ But, on the whole, their condition may sustain an advantageous comparison with that of any Christian people under the Mussulman do- minion of later times, and affords a striking con- trast with that of our Saxon ancestors after the Norman conquest, which suggests an obvious paral- lel in many of its circumstances to the Saracen. ^" Babylon, whatever miseries Rome more than 500 of pure Moorish inflicted upon the glorious com- descent. Anales, torn. iv. fol. 314. pany of the martyrs, all these 9 The famous persecutions of were visited upon the once happy Cordova under the reigns of Ab- and prosperous, but now desolated derrahman II. and his son, which, Spain." Pacensis Chronicon apud to judge from the tone of Castilian riorez, Espaiia Sagrada, tom. viii. writers, might vie with those of p. 292. Nero and Diocletian, are admitted 8 The frequency of this alliance by Morales (Obras, tom. x. p. 74,) may be inferred from an extra- to have occasioned the destruction ordinary, though, doubtless, ex- of only forty individuals. INIost travagant statement cited by Zu- of these unhappy fanatics solicited rita. The ambassadors of James the crown of martyrdom by an II.,ofAragon, in 1311, represented open violation of the Mahometan to the sovereign pontiff, Clement laws and usages. Tiie details are v., that, of the 200,000 souls, given by Florez, in the tenth vol- which tlicn composed the popula- ume of his collection, tion of Granada, there were not ^^ Bleda, Cor6Dica de los Moros