The maiden tribute is the subject of several ancient ballads by the Christian Spaniards.  The following are two verses from one of these:—­

  “For he who gives the Moorish king a hundred maids of Spain
  Each year when in the season the day comes round again;
  If he be not a heathen he swells the heathen’s train—­
  ’Twere better burn a kingdom than suffer such disdain!

  “If the Moslems must have tribute, make men your tribute-money,
  Send idle drones to tease them within their hives of honey;
  For, when ’tis paid with maidens, from every maid there spring
  Some five or six strong soldiers to serve the Moorish king."[1]

Southey also says that the only old Portuguese ballad known to him was on this subject.  The evidence, then, of the ballads is strong for a fact of this kind, telling, too, as it does, so much against the writers of the ballads.[2]

As to the Christian chroniclers, it is quite true that we find no mention of this tribute in the history of Sebastian of Salamanca and the Chronicle of Albeldum, but there is a direct allusion to it in a document included in the collection of Florez.[3] “Our ancestors,” says Ramiro, “the kings of the land—­we blush to record it—­to free themselves from the raids of the Saracens, consented to pay them yearly a shameful tribute of a hundred maidens distinguished for their beauty, fifty of noble birth, and fifty from the people.”  It was to put an end to this nefarious tribute that Ramiro now ordered a levy en masse.  This, if the document is genuine (and Florez gives no hint to the contrary), is good evidence for the fact.  Many succeeding writers mention it.  Lucas of Tuy[4] says that Ramiro was asked for the tribute in 842.  Johannes Vasaeus[5] speaks of it, as also Alfonso, Bishop of Burgos;[6] and lastly, Rodrigo of Toledo[7] says that Mauregatus (783-788), having obtained the throne of Leon by Saracen help, agreed to send this tribute yearly.

On the whole, then, the evidence is in favour of the maiden tribute being no myth, but of its having been regularly paid for more than fifty years.  Most of these Christian maidens probably embraced the religion of their husbands, but in some cases they no doubt converted them to their own faith.

From different causes, some of which will be mentioned elsewhere, conversions were frequent from one religion to the other.  Motives of worldly interest naturally caused the balance in these to fall very much against the Christians, but as the Mohammedan power declined the opposite was the case.  Though voluntary apostasy was, and is, unpardonable, Mohammed seems to have made allowances for those who apostatized under compulsion; for when one of his followers, Ammar ibn Yaser, being tortured by the Koreish, renounced his belief in God and in Mohammed’s mission, but afterwards came weeping to the Prophet, Mohammed received him kindly, and, wiping his eyes, said:  “What fault was it of thine, if they forced thee?"[8]