empire to Bagdad; and then the Saracens began to excel in literature and science. Almanzor encouraged scientific studies at Bagdad, and transplanted thither the Roman learning from Constantinople. Under Haroun Alraschid, contemporary with Charlemagne, arts of utility and elegance rose to a high pitch of splendour.

The manners and customs, and much of the government and police of the Saracens of this era may be pleasurably studied in the "Arabian Nights," a truthful and minute picture of Oriental manners.

The sciences in which the Arabians chiefly excelled were chemistry, medicine, and astronomy. Algebra, if they did not invent, they were the first to adopt from the far east.

The Caliphs founded Morocco, and crossed over to Spain; and in 713 they became masters of the whole country, conquering the Goths, whom, however, they left in the enjoyment of their own laws and possessions. The Saracens in Spain are usually mentioned under the name of Moor, that name expressing the mixed population of Arabians and Africans. The Moors, soon masters of Spain, pushed their conquests beyond the Pyrenees into France; but here they received a check. Louis the Débonnaire, who, taking advantage of their dissensions, sent an army into Spain, sieged and took Barcelona. While the Moors were losing ground in the north of Spain, their countrymen had established a flourishing kingdom in the south. Abdalrahman, last of the family of Omar, sovereign

A. D.

713.

A. D. of the Moorish possessions, made Cordova the 950 capital of a splendid monarchy; and now, from

750

about 750 to 950 A.D., is the brilliant age of Arabian magnificence. While Haroun Alraschid was cultivating the arts and sciences at Bagdad, Abdalrahman at Cordova was at the head of the most enlightened of the states of Europe. The empire of the Franks, under Charlemagne, we admit, presented at the same time a beautiful picture of order and strength sprung from confusion and weakness; but this empire perished with its founder, while the cotemporary kingdom of the Moors continued to encourage industry and diffuse a knowledge of the arts and sciences among all the nations of the west. The Moorish structures in Spain, reared during the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, convey an idea of opulence and grandeur almost beyond belief. The mosque of Cordova is still almost entire, and corroborates the most wonderful description which historians have given of the magnificence of the Moors in Spain.

The Saracens were still extending their conquests. The Mahometan faith had spread over India and along the southern and eastern coasts of the Mediterranean. Established in Sicily, they sailed up the Tiber and sieged Rome. And now, while the Saracens were waiting the arrival of more forces, Leo IV. used the treasures of the Church to defend the city, and stretched iron chains across the Tiber; and, eventually, all the

Saracen invaders were either killed or made A. D. prisoners.

But it happened with the Saracens as with all large empires without one head and centre of authority. The generals affected independence, and the empire fell to pieces. Still, even its separate parts long commanded the respect of surrounding nations. Egypt had her own Sultan; Mauritania became the empire of Morocco; the kingdom of Cordova obeyed an independent member of the race of Omar; and though all these princes continued to respect the Saracen Caliph at Bagdad, they no longer formed parts of the once powerful and united Saracene empire.

The Caliphs of Bagdad hired Turks to be their body-guard-a policy which proved as fatal as enlisting the barbarian Goths into the legions of Rome. The Turks eventually stripped the Caliphs of their dominions in Asia and Africa, and took the capital Bagdad in 1055. Still the Caliphs were allowed to retain their names and honours as supreme pontiffs of the Mahometan religion.

Omar had built a beautiful mosque in Jerusalem, after reducing Palestine; and this will explain how the Crusaders had to encounter both Turks and Saracens at the end of the eleventh century.

The empire of the Moors in Spain was dismembered about 1027, and in 1221 the kingdom of Granada was dissolved. But soon after Mahomet Alhamar founded anew the kingdom of Gra

1055.

A. D. nada, and his descendants reigned till the six1492. teenth century. It was reserved for Ferdinand

and Isabella to give the last blow to the Moors by depriving them of Granada, which they yielded to the Roman Catholic armies after a siege of two years. And though their government in Spain thus ended, after a rule of 700 years, the Moors did not leave the country. The Moors, dispersed over many provinces of Spain, maintained their separation from the Spaniards by language, customs, and an obstinate adherence to the habits, and, above all, the religion of their ancestors. All the efforts of the Spanish friars could bring but few Mahometans to the Christian faith. Spanish princes had an extra motive for converting the Moors of Spain- -because they naturally

The

feared that bond of alliance with the Moors of the opposite coast of Barbary. At last, when every milder means had failed, Ximenes, archbishop of Toledo, advised force. The Moors in Granada took up arms, but being defeated, 50,000 purchased their lives by submitting to be baptized. The preaching of the friars and the tortures of the Inquisition combined with occasional warfare in the vain attempt to make the Moors at the same time false to their own faith and true to that of their persecutors. 120 years passed since the advice of Ximenes, and but few of the Moors had become Christians; and at last 100,000 families of the most peaceful and industrious, and the most useful of the subjects of Spain, were

madly and mercilessly expelled. This deed of A. D. villany was quickly felt to be no less a blunder 1620. than a crime. All Spain felt a severe depression in commerce, and such a blow to their social advancement as they have never recovered. Philip III., who died soon after, is said, by a famous Spanish historian, to have been racked by remorse on the bed of death, by a conscience guilty of the misery of 600,000 exiles, “shuddering,” says that writer, "at the thought of being shortly summoned to that tribunal where they are to have judgment without mercy, who have showed no mercy to their fellow creatures."

CHAP. XXXIX.

CHRISTIANITY INTRODUCED INTO GERMANY.
PEPIN.. PAPAL POWER.

500.

IN Germany, since the year 500 A.D., the Franks a.d. were the ruling people. Contiguous to the Franks, and as yet unconquered, lay the territories of the Alemanni in Swabia, of the Thuringians on the banks of the Saale, while the Saxons extended from the Rhine as far as Holstein. Their incorporation into large societies had produced many changes. Although the Germans were still devoted to war and the chase, agriculture and gar