Kingdom of Granada

“ The kingdom of Granada, like that of Castile, was rent by internal dissensions. Surrounded by powerful and hostile states, it maintained its existence chiefly through the incessant quarrels of its neighbors. In its court and capital treason and crime were rampant. Emir after emir, whose titles were derived from the murder of their kinsmen, succeeded one another on the throne. A great and tumultuous population, which had fled before the invincible squadrons of the conqueror, crowded its provinces. ”

“ Are our walls, peradventure, more strong than the walls of Ronda? Are our warriors more brave than the defenders of Loxa? The walls of Ronda were thrown down and the warriors of Loxa had to surrender. Do we hope for succor?—whence are we to receive it? The time for hope is gone by. Granada has lost its power; it no longer possesses chivalry, commanders, nor a king. Boabdil sits a vassal in the degraded halls of the Alhambra; El Zagal is a fugitive, shut up within the walls of Guadix. The kingdom is divided against itself—its strength is gone, its pride fallen, its very existence at an end. ”

“ I see the spirit of the people so cast down that it is impossible to save the kingdom. Yet there still remains an alternative for noble minds--a glorious death! Let us die defending our liberty and avenging the woes of Granada. Our mother earth will receive her children into her bosom, safe from the chains and oppressions of the conqueror, or, should any fail a sepulchre to hide his remains, he will not want a sky to cover him. Allah forbid it should be said the nobles of Granada feared to die in her defence! ”

“ SPAIN: A. D. 1238-1273. The Moorish kingdom of Granada. The building of the Alhambra. "A new era had begun in the fortunes of the Moors. Reft of their two magnificent capitals at Cordova and Seville, they had gathered into the extreme south, under the able and beneficent rule of Aben-al-Hamar, who, though a tributary to Castille, termed himself Sultan and Emir of the Faithful, and is usually called King of Granada. Karnattah, as the Arabs had named it, meant the Cream of the West. ”

“ Few readers need to be told that the kingdom of Granada at the period of the Conquest was one of the richest and most flourishing countries in the world. Its fertile valleys embraced the garden of the Peninsula; its industrious population had carried agriculture to a degree of perfection unknown to modern times ”

“ The Vega was studded with towers of refuge for the peasantry: every pass of the mountain had its castle of defence, every lofty height its watch-tower. As the Christian cavaliers passed under the walls of the fortresses, lances and scimetars flashed from their battlements, and the Moorish sentinels darted from their dark eyes glances of hatred and defiance. It was evident that a war with this kingdom must be a war of posts, full of doughty peril and valiant enterprise, where every step must be gained by toil and bloodshed, and maintained with the utmost difficulty. ”

“ The comparative prosperity of Granada was due to the concentration of a large population driven from other parts of Spain, and the consequent necessity for the intensive cultivation of the rich valleys lying among the ranges of mountains which encircle the kingdom, and the extensive “ Vega ” or plain of Granada. The reputation for civilization which the agitated Mahommedan state enjoys in history is based on the surviving parts of the highly decorated fortress palace of the Alhambra, which was mainly the work of three of the sultans, the founder, Mahommed el Ghalib, and his two successors. ”

“ The kingdom of Mohammed Alhamar, which thenceforth had to contend single-handed against the Christians, was respectable in size, though but a fragment of the vast dominions of the Caliphs of the West. It extended far beyond the limits of the modern kingdom of Granada, and comprised all the mountainous portions of those of Jaen, Cordoba, Seville, and Murcia; thus stretching along the sea-shore from Cape Trafalgar to Cape de Gatte, and forming a compact and very defensible territory. ”

“ The Christian princes, so successful in regaining the rest of the Peninsula, found their triumphs checked at the mountain-boundaries of this kingdom. Every peak had its atalaya, or watch-tower, ready to make its fire by night or to send up its column of smoke by day, a signal of invasion at which the whole country was on the alert. To penetrate the defiles of this perilous country, to surprise a frontier fortress, or to make a foray into the Vega and a hasty ravage within sight of the very capital were among the most favorite and daring exploits of the Castilian chivalry. ”

“ His territories extended from the frontier of Jaen along the borders of Murcia to the Mediterranean, and reached into the centre of the kingdom. On the northeast he held the cities of Baza and Guadix, situated in the midst of fertile regions. He had the important seaport of Almeria also, which at one time rivalled Granada itself in wealth and population. Besides these, his territories included a great part of the Alpuxarras mountains, which extend across the kingdom and shoot out branches toward the sea-coast. This mountainous region was a stronghold of wealth and power. ”

“ In the midst of his despondency he received a message from his lion-hearted mother, the sultana Ayxa la Horra. It was brought by the steadfast adherent to their fortunes, Aben Comixa. “For shame,” said she, “to linger timorously about the borders of your kingdom when a usurper is seated in your capital! Why look abroad for perfidious aid when you have loyal hearts beating true to you in Granada? The Albaycin is ready to throw open its gates to receive you. Strike home vigorously—a sudden blow may mend all or make an end. A throne or a grave!—for a king there is no honorable medium.” ”

“ As I descended I met with your patrol, who let me into the secret that it was Granada that lay before me, and that I was actually under the walls of the Alhambra, the fortress of the redoubted Governor Manco, the terror of all enchanted Moslems. When I heard this, I determined at once to seek your Excellency, to inform you of all that I had seen, and to warn you of the perils that surround and undermine you, that you may take measures in time to guard your fortress, and the kingdom itself, from this intestine army that lurks in the very bowels of the land. ”

“ With Granada before it became the centre of an independent kingdom, we need concern ourselves but little. Its real interest dates from the establishment of the Nasrite dynasty in the first half of the thirteenth century. It was the time when the great Almohade Empire was breaking up. Probably all Andalusia would have shared the fate of Cordova and Seville, and the conquests of the Catholic kings been anticipated by two centuries, had not a young man of Arjona, Ibn Al Ahmar by name, determined to fashion for himself a kingdom out of{2} the fragments of empire. ”

“ This important city, which, a short time previously, had adopted a Republican form of government, and, with democratic jealousy, had kept aloof whilst the Christians were crippling the growing power of the neighbouring kingdom of Granada, now reaped the fruits of its short-sighted policy; being obliged, after a short but obstinate struggle, to bend the neck to the Castillian yoke.
Murcia on one side, and Algarbe on the other, were soon afterwards added to the conquests of the allied sovereigns of Castile and Aragon. ”

“ Chapter I OF THE KINGDOM OF GRANADA, AND THE TRIBUTE WHICH IT PAID TO THE CASTILIAN CROWN.
The history of those bloody and disastrous wars which have caused the downfall of mighty empires (observes Fray Antonio Agapida) has ever been considered a study highly delectable and full of precious edification. ”

“ Lying behind these extensive coasts to the westward in{147} the interior, is the region to which the Spaniards gave the name of the kingdom of New Granada, the name being applied in consequence of a resemblance which was detected between the plain around Santa Fè de Bogotá and the royal Vega which adjoins the historical Moorish capital. New Granada was a most extensive region, comprising as it did the entire country from sea to sea in the north, lying between 60° and 78° longitude, and from 6° to 15° of latitude. ”

“ The grand cardinal of Spain, Don Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, coincided in opinion with the marques of Cadiz. Nay (added that pious prelate and politic statesman) , it would be sound wisdom to furnish the Moor with men and money and all other necessaries to promote the civil war in Granada: by this means would be produced great benefit to the service of God, since we are assured by his infallible word that “a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.” ”

“ Its population, too, was great beyond all proportion to its extent; the inhabitants of the various cities captured by the Christians having, by an inconceivable act of barbarity and impolicy, been driven from their homes to seek shelter within the mountain-girt kingdom of Granada. So enormous, indeed, is the amount of population said to have been, that the Capital alone could furnish an army of 50,000 fighting men. ”

“ The entire available military force of the kingdom was not less than three hundred thousand men.
An examination of the character of the inhabitants of Granada reveals to us one of the many causes of their fall. They are described as incredibly selfish, as deficient in humanity, without sympathy for the living or reverence for the dead. In times of scarcity, the superfluity of the rich was abused for the oppression of the poor. They celebrated their riotous festivals in the vicinity of cemeteries. That humble piety which is at once the merit and the security of a people was extinct. ”

“ Yet on this comparatively small point of their ancient domain, the Saracens erected a new kingdom of sufficient strength to resist, for more than two centuries, the united forces of the Spanish monarchies.
The Moorish territory of Granada contained, within a circuit of about one hundred and eighty leagues, all the physical resources of a great empire. Its broad valleys were intersected by mountains rich in mineral wealth, whose hardy population supplied the state with husbandmen and soldiers. ”

“ The old men and the nobles immediately consulted together how the two rival kings might be brought to accord. They had tried most expedients: it was now determined to divide the kingdom between them, giving Granada, Malaga, Velez Malaga, Almeria, Almunecar, and their dependencies to El Zagal, and the residue to Boabdil el Chico. Among the cities granted to the latter Loxa was particularly specified, with a condition that he should immediately take command of it in person, for the council thought the favor he enjoyed with the Castilian monarchs might avert the threatened attack. ”

“ Many brave cavaliers of Granada also, spurning the quiet and security of Christian vassalage, secretly left the city and hastened to join their fighting countrymen. The great dependence of El Zagal, however, was upon the valor and loyalty of his cousin and brother-in-law, Cid Hiaya Alnagar,* who was alcayde of Almeria—a cavalier experienced in warfare and redoubtable in the field. He wrote to him to leave Almeria and repair with all speed at the head of his troops to Baza. Cid Hiaya departed immediately with ten thousand of the bravest Moors in the kingdom. ”

“ Thus Cordoba, which had already ceded the pre-eminence to Seville, fell, unaided, into the hands of the Castillian in the very year that Granada became the capital of a formidable Mohammedan kingdom; and Valencia, only two years later, was also finally added to the conquests of the Christians. Even the city of Jaen, though fiercely contested for by Mohammed Alhamar, was at last ceded by treaty to his better-supported antagonist, San Fernando, who then, with consummate policy, forming an alliance with the king of Granada, induced him to assist in the subjugation of Seville. ”

“ His presence in the kingdom, however, and his assumption of royal state gave life to his faction in Granada. The inhabitants of the Albaycin, the poorest but most warlike part of the populace, were generally in his favor: the more rich, courtly, and aristocratical inhabitants of the quarter of the Alhambra rallied round what appeared to be the most stable authority and supported the throne of El Zagal. So it is in the admirable order of sublunary affairs: everything seeks its kind ”

“ If the Moorish monuments be the object of his research, he will find they have been scattered with a more profuse hand throughout Andalusia than in any other part of the peninsula; the lofty mountain chain which forms the northern boundary of the province [6] having for some considerable time arrested the Christian arms, after the rest of Spain had been recovered from the Mohammedans; whilst the yet more rugged belt that encircles Granada presented an obstacle which retarded the entire reconquest of the kingdom, for upwards of two centuries and a half. ”

“ The nobles and alfaquis, however, repaired to the Alhambra to congratulate the king; for, whatever storms may rage in the lower regions of society, rarely do any clouds but clouds of incense rise to the awful eminence of the throne. In this instance, however, a voice rose from the midst of the obsequious crowd, and burst like thunder upon the ears of Abul Hassan. "Woe! woe! woe! to Granada!" exclaimed the voice; "its hour of desolation approaches. The ruins of Zahara will fall upon our heads; my spirit tells me that the end of our empire is at hand." ”

“ As Muza placed himself on a cushion, a little below the king, Boabdil motioned to one amongst the crowd. “Hamet,” said he, “thou hast examined the state of the Christian camp; what news dost thou bring?”
“Light of the Faithful,” answered the Moor, “it is a camp no longer—it has already become a city. Nine towns of Spain were charged with the task; stone has taken the place of canvas; towers and streets arise like the buildings of a genius; and the misbelieving king hath sworn that this new city shall not be left until Granada sees his standard on its walls.” ”