Celibacy of the clergy, again, was strongly advocated as a contrast to the polygamy of Mohammedans; and an abbot, Saulus, is mentioned with horror as having a wife and children, one of whom afterwards succeeded him, and also married.[3]

One of the last acts of a Gothic king had been to enforce the marriage of the clergy, and though this act was repealed by Fruela I. (757-768) in the North, yet concubinage became very common among the clergy;[4] and it was perhaps to remedy a similar state of things that Witiza wished to compel the clergy to have lawful wives.

    [1] Miss Yonge, p. 67.

    [2] Lane-Poole, “Story of the Moors,” p. 136.

    [3] Florez, “Esp.  Sagr.,” xviii. 326—­“Conventus Episcoporum
    pro restoratione monasterii.”  The children are called “Spinae
    ac vepres, nec nominandi proles.”

    [4] Prescott, “Ferd. and Isab.,” p. 16.  From Samson, “Apol.,”
    ii. cc. 2, 6, we learn that Christians had begun to imitate the
    Moslems in having harems.

We have left to the last the great and interesting question of the origin of chivalry.  Though forming no part of the doctrines of Christianity or Islam, chivalry and its influences could not with justice be wholly overlooked in a discussion like the present.  The institution known by that name arose in the age of Charles the Great (768-814),[1] and was therefore nearly synchronous with the invasion of Europe by the Arabs.  Its origin has been, indeed, referred to the military service of fiefs, but all its characteristics, which were personal and individual, such as loyalty, courtesy, munificence, point to a racial rather than a political source, and these characteristics are found in an eminent degree among the Arabs.  “The solitary and independent spirit of chivalry,” says Hallam,[2] “dwelling as it were upon a rock, and disdaining injustice or falsehood from a consciousness of internal dignity, without any calculation of the consequences, is not unlike what we sometimes read of Arabian chiefs or American Indians.”

Whatever the precise origin of chivalry may have been, there can be no doubt that its development was largely influenced by the relative positions of Arabs and Christians in Spain, and the perpetual war which went on between them in that country.

Though not a religious institution at the outset, except perhaps among our Saxon forefathers,[3] chivalry soon became religious in character, and its golden age of splendour was during the crusades against the Moslems of Spain and Palestine.  Spain itself may almost be called the cradle of chivalry; and it must be allowed that even in the first flush of conquest the Arabs shewed themselves to be truly chivalrous enemies, and clearly had nothing to learn from Christians in that respect.  The very earliest days of Moslem triumph, saw the same chivalrous spirit displayed at the capture of Jerusalem, forming a strange and melancholy contrast to the scene at its recapture subsequently by the Crusaders under the heroic Godfrey de Bouillon.