Search -
The story of the Christians and Moors of Spain
The story of the Christians and Moors of Spain Author:Charlotte Mary Yonge Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VII. L:ttle Christlan States. It is strange that such fiendish cruelty should be ascribed by the Carpio ballads to Alfonso II., for he is in general ... more »treated as a saint of the class of Edward the Confessor. The records of his reign are very scanty and much confused, and it appears that on the death of Silo, an illegitimate son of Alfonso I. by a Moorish woman, known as Mauregato (probably a nickname), seized the crown and kept it to his death, paying the Arabs a tribute—which some say had begun under Aurelio—of wheat, wine, olives, and fifty horses, and according to romance, even fifty maidens, every year. He died in 788, and then his uncle Bermudo was chosen as king, though he was a deacon ; but he soon retired into a convent, leaving the throne and his two sons to Alfonso II., called El Casio, from the monastic vow he had taken. It was that same year, 788, that Abd-el-Rhaman died, having chosen as his successor his youngest and favourite son Haschem, the son of a wife he had taken among the noble Zenetes of Mount Atlas, and the only one of his children who had been born in Spain. He had been most carefully educated, and was a brave and merciful prince ; but he had to fight for his throne, for his two brothers, Abd-Allah and Suleiman, raised Merida and Toledo against him. He overcame and forgave them both, and during his brief reign continued to build mosques and palaces, and imported many choice plants from the East and from Africa, which spread into all the gardens of Europe. He still retained the dignified simplicity of the Ommeyad, and used to work in his garden with his own hands ; and he was also a poet, writing Arabic verses which were highly esteemed. He founded schools, and forbade the use of any language but Arabic, so that his Christian subjects use...« less