[5] Cardonne, i. 75.

    [6] Dr Dunham.

It will not be necessary to pursue the history of the conquest in detail.  It is enough to say that in three years almost all Spain and part of Southern Gaul were added to the Saracen empire.  But the Arabs made the fatal mistake[1] of leaving a remnant of their enemies unconquered in the mountains of Asturia, and hardly had the wave of conquest swept over the country, than it began slowly but surely to recede.  The year 733 witnessed the high-water mark of Arab extension in the West, and Christian Gaul was never afterwards seriously threatened with the calamity of a Mohammedan domination.

The period of forty-five years which elapsed between the conquest and the establishment of the Khalifate of Cordova was a period of disorder, almost amounting to anarchy, throughout Spain.  This state of things was one eminently favourable to the growth and consolidation of the infant state which was arising among the mountains of the Northwest.  In that corner of the land, which alone[2] was not polluted by the presence of Moslem masters, were gathered all those proud spirits who could not brook subjection and valued freedom above all earthly possessions.[3] Here all the various nationalities that had from time to time borne rule in Spain,

    “Punic and Roman Kelt and Goth and Greek,” [4]

all the various classes, nobles, freemen, and slaves, were gradually welded by the strong pressure of a common calamity into one compact and homogeneous whole.[5] Meanwhile what was the condition of those Christians who preferred to live in their own homes, but under the Moslem yoke?  It must be confessed that they might have fared much worse; and the conciliatory policy pursued by the Arabs no doubt contributed largely to the facility of the conquest.  The first conqueror, Tarik ibn Zeyad, was a man of remarkable generosity and clemency, and his conduct fully justified the proud boast which he uttered when arraigned on false charges before the Sultan Suleiman.[6] “Ask the true believers,” he said, “ask also the Christians, what the conduct of Tarik has been in Africa and in Spain.  Let them say if they have ever found him cowardly, covetous, or cruel.”

    [1] Al Makkari, ii. 34.

    [2] According to Sebastian of Salamanca, the Moors had never
    been admitted into any town of Biscay before 870.

    [3] Prescott, “Ferdinand and Isabella,” seems to think that
    only the lower orders remained under the Moors.  Yet in a note
    he mentions a remark of Zurita’s to the contrary (page 3).

    [4] Southey, “Roderick,” Canto iv.