the North, yet he defeated them in a series of great engagements.[1] He welded all the discordant elements under his rule into one great whole,[2] thereby giving the Arab domination in Spain another lease of life.  In 929 he took the title of Amir al Mumenin, or Commander of the Faithful.  His alliance was sought by the Emperor of the East,[3] and he treated on equal terms with the Emperor of Germany and the King of France.  To this great king, with more truth than to his namesake Abdurrahman II., may be applied the words of Miss Yonge:—­[4]

“He was of that type of Eastern monarch, that seems moulded on the character of Solomon—­large-hearted, wise, magnificent, tolerant, and peaceful.  He was as great a contrast to the stern, ascetic, narrow-minded, but earnest Alfonso or Ramiro, as were the exquisite horse-shoe arches, filagree stonework lattices, inlaid jewellery of marble pavements, and slender minarets, to their dark vault-like, low-browed churches, and solid castles built out of hard unmanageable granite.”

    [1] Mutonia (918); Calaborra; Vale de Junqueras (921).

    [2] Dozy, ii. 351, from an Arab writer.

    [3] A very interesting account of this embassy from Constantine
    VII. (947) is given in Al Makkari, ii. 137, from Ibn
    Khaldun.—–­See Conde, i. 442.

    [4] P. 57.

We find in this king none of that suspicious jealousy which we saw in Mohammed, even though Omar, the arch rebel, and Christian renegade, still held out at Bobastro, when he ascended the throne; and his treatment of Christians was, throughout his reign, tolerant and politic.

But his claims in this respect will be best seen from a very interesting fragment that has come down to our own times, describing the embassy of a certain John of Gorz, a monk from an abbey near Metz, who carried letters from Otho, emperor of Germany, to the Spanish Sultan.[1]

In 950 Abdurrahman had sent an embassy to the emperor.  A bishop who had been at the head of this embassy died, and this seems to have caused a delay in the answer.  As the Khalif’s letter contained blasphemies against Christ, it was determined to write a reply in the king’s name, such as might perhaps convince Abdurrahman of the error of his ways.  A certain bishop, Adalbero, was appointed to be at the head of the return embassy,[2] and he asks the abbot of the monastery of Gorz to give him two assistants.  Two are chosen, but one of these quarrels with his superior, and is expelled from the body; whereupon John offers himself as a substitute.  The abbot only gives his consent to John’s going with great reluctance, knowing that the young monk had an ardent longing to be a martyr, if he could only get the opportunity.

    [1] See “Vita Johannis Abbatis Gorziensis,” 973, by John, Abbot
    of Arnulph.  “Migne,” vol. cxxxvii., pp. 239-310.

    [2] In 953.