John of Gorz now proposes the only practicable course, that Abdurrahman should send a fresh embassy to Otho and ask for instructions for his ambassadors under the circumstances.  Recemundus,[1] a Christian, offers to go as ambassador, if a vacant bishopric be given him as a reward.  He sets out and reaches Gorz in February 956.  Otho gives him a fresh letter, with instructions to suppress the former one, to conclude an alliance with the Sultan, and make an arrangement with him for putting down the brigands who infested the marches.

[1] De Gayangos, on Al Makkari, ii. p. 464, identifies him with Rabi, a bishop mentioned as an ambassador of Abdurrahman III. in Al Makkari, i. 236, ii. 139; but Rabi may have been the bishop who died during the embassy to Otho.  Recemundus, as De Gayangos (1.1.) says, was a katib or clerk of the palace.

Leaving Gorz with Dudo, the emperor’s legate, on March 30, he reached Cordova on June 1st, but the Sultan declined to receive the second comers till he had received the earlier embassy.  So, after three years semi-captivity, John is released, and told to prepare himself for the king’s presence by shaving, washing, and putting on new apparel.  He declines to go in any otherwise than he is; and even when the king, thinking his refusal due to poverty, sends him a sum of money, the monk accepts the gift and distributes it to the poor, but says he will only see the king as a poor monk.  The king good-naturedly said:  “Let him come as he likes.”  On June 21, 956, the ambassadors were conducted to the king’s presence along a road thronged with sight-seers.  The steps of the palace were laid down with tapestry, and a guard of honour lined both sides of the approach.  On John’s entrance, the king, as a great mark of distinction, gave him his open palm to kiss, and beckoned him to a seat near his own couch.  After a silence Abdurrahman apologised to the monk for the long delay which he had been obliged to impose on the embassy, and which was in no sense due to disrespect for John himself, whose virtue and wisdom he could not but acknowledge.  As a proof that this was no mere empty compliment, the king expressed his readiness to give him whatever he asked.  John’s wrath vanishes at these gracious words, and they talk amicably together.  But when the monk asks leave to depart Abdurrahman says:—­“After waiting so long to see one another, shall we part so soon?” He suggests that they should have at least three interviews.  At their next meeting they discourse on the respective power of the empires of Otho and the Khalif himself; and the Sultan, taught by the experience of Spain, points out the unwisdom of allowing feudal subjects to become too powerful, by dividing kingdoms between them.

So ends this unique and interesting fragment, which throws so pleasant a light on the character and the Court of the greatest of Spanish Sultans, and proves that the Christians at that time enjoyed considerable freedom, and even honour, at the hands of the Moslem Government.