Such were the heresies which connect themselves with Spain during the first three hundred years of Arab domination, and which seem to have been, in part at least, due to Mohammedan influence.  One more there was, the Albigensian heresy, which broke out one hundred and fifty years later, and was perhaps the outcome of intercourse with the Mohammedanism of Spain.[5]

    [1] Jonas of Orleans, apud Migne, vol. cvi. p. 326.

    [2] Luke xiv. 27.

    [3] Jonas, apud Migne, vol. cvi. p. 351.

    [4] See Appendix B, pp. 161-173.

    [5] So Blunt.  It found followers in Leon.  See Mariana, xii. 2,
    from Lucas of Tuy.

CHAPTER X.

SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY.

Having considered the effects of Mohammedanism on doctrinal Christianity (there are no traces of similar effects on doctrinal Mohammedanism), it will fall within the scope of our inquiry to estimate the extent to which those influences were reciprocally felt by the two religions in their social and intellectual aspects; and how far the character of a Christian or a Mohammedan was altered by contact with a people professing a creed so like, and yet so unlike.[1] This influence we shall find more strongly manifested in the action of Christianity on Islam, than the reverse.

It is well known that Mohammed, though his opinion as to monks seems to have varied[2] from time to time, is reported to have expressly declared that he would have no monks in his religion.[3] Abubeker, his successor,—­if Gibbon’s translation may be trusted,—­in his marching orders to the army, told them to let monks and their monasteries alone.[4] It was not long, however, before an order of itinerant monks—­the faquirs—­arose among the Moslems.  In other parts of their dominions these became a recognised, and in some ways privileged, class; but in Andalusia they did not receive much encouragement,[5] though they were very numerous even there.  Most of them, says the Arabian historian,[6] were nothing more than beggars, able but unwilling to work.  This remark, however, he tells us, must not be applied to all, “for there were among them men who, moved by sentiments of piety and devotion, left the world and its vanities, and either retired to convents to pass the remainder of their days among brethren of the same community, or putting on the darwazah, and grasping the faquir’s staff, went through the country begging a scanty pittance, and moving the faithful to compassion by their wretched and revolting appearance.”  That Moslem monkeries did exist, especially in rather later times, we can gather from the above passage and from another place,[7] where a convent called Zawiyatu l’Mahruk (the convent of the burnt) is mentioned.  On that passage De Gayangos[8] has an interesting note, in which he quotes from an African writer an account of a monastic establishment near Malaga.[9] The writer says:  “I saw