Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada

The history of those bloody and disastrous wars which have caused the downfall of mighty empires (observes Fray Antonio Agapida) has ever been considered a study highly delectable and full of precious edification.

What, then, must be the history of a pious crusade waged by the most Catholic of sovereigns to rescue from the power of the infidels one of the most beautiful but benighted regions of the globe? Listen, then, while from the solitude of my cell I relate the events of the conquest of Granada, where Christian knight and turbaned infidel disputed, inch by inch, the fair land of Andalusia, until the Crescent, that symbol of heathenish abomination, was cast down, and the blessed Cross, the tree of our redemption, erected in its stead.

Nearly eight hundred years were past and gone since the Arabian invaders had sealed the perdition of Spain by the defeat of Don Roderick, the last of her Gothic kings. Since that disastrous event one portion after another of the Peninsula had been gradually recovered by the Christian princes, until the single but powerful and warlike territory of Granada alone remained under the domination of the Moors.

This renowned kingdom, situated in the southern part of Spain and washed on one side by the Mediterranean Sea, was traversed in every direction by sierras or chains of lofty and rugged mountains, naked, rocky, and precipitous, rendering it almost impregnable, but locking up within their sterile embraces deep, rich, and verdant valleys of prodigal fertility.

In the centre of the kingdom lay its capital, the beautiful city of Granada, sheltered, as it were, in the lap of the Sierra Nevada, or Snowy Mountains. Its houses, seventy thousand in number, covered two lofty hills with their declivities and a deep valley between them, through which flowed the Darro. The streets were narrow, as is usual in Moorish and Arab cities, but there were occasionally small squares and open places. The houses had gardens and interior courts, set out with orange, citron, and pomegranate trees and refreshed by fountains, so that as the edifices ranged above each other up the sides of the hills, they presented a delightful appearance of mingled grove and city. One of the hills was surmounted by the Alcazaba, a strong fortress commanding all that part of the city; the other by the Alhambra, a royal palace and warrior castle, capable of containing within its alcazar and towers a garrison of forty thousand men, but possessing also its harem, the voluptuous abode of the Moorish monarchs, laid out with courts and gardens, fountains and baths, and stately halls decorated in the most costly style of Oriental luxury. According to Moorish tradition, the king who built this mighty and magnificent pile was skilled in the occult sciences, and furnished himself with the necessary funds by means of alchemy.* Such was its lavish splendor that even at the present day the stranger, wandering through its silent courts and deserted halls, gazes with astonishment at gilded ceilings and fretted domes, the brilliancy and beauty of which have survived the vicissitudes of war and the silent dilapidation of ages.

* Zurita, lib. 20, c. 42.

The city was surrounded by high walls, three leagues in circuit, furnished with twelve gates and a thousand and thirty towers. Its elevation above the sea and the neighborhood of the Sierra Nevada crowned with perpetual snows tempered the fervid rays of summer, so that while other cities were panting with the sultry and stifling heat of the dog-days, the most salubrious breezes played through the marble halls of Granada.

The glory of the city, however, was its Vega or plain, which spread out to a circumference of thirty-seven leagues, surrounded by lofty mountains, and was proudly compared to the famous plain of Damascus. It was a vast garden of delight, refreshed by numerous fountains and by the silver windings of the Xenil. The labor and ingenuity of the Moors had diverted the waters of this river into thousands of rills and streams, and diffused them over the whole surface of the plain. Indeed, they had wrought up this happy region to a degree of wonderful prosperity, and took a pride in decorating it as if it had been a favorite mistress. The hills were clothed with orchards and vineyards, the valleys embroidered with gardens, and the wide plains covered with waving grain. Here were seen in profusion the orange, the citron, the fig, and the pomegranate, with great plantations of mulberry trees, from which was produced the finest silk. The vine clambered from tree to tree, the grapes hung in rich clusters about the peasant's cottage, and the groves were rejoiced by the perpetual song of the nightingale. In a word, so beautiful was the earth, so pure the air, and so serene the sky of this delicious region that the Moors imagined the paradise of their Prophet to be situated in that part of the heaven which overhung the kingdom of Granada.

Within this favored realm, so prodigally endowed and strongly fortified by nature, the Moslem wealth, valor, and intelligence, which had once shed such a lustre over Spain, had gradually retired, and here they made their final stand. Granada had risen to splendor on the ruin of other Moslem kingdoms, but in so doing had become the sole object of Christian hostility, and had to maintain its very existence by the sword. The Moorish capital accordingly presented a singular scene of Asiatic luxury and refinement, mingled with the glitter and the din of arms. Letters were still cultivated, philosophy and poetry had their schools and disciples, and the language spoken was said to be the most elegant Arabic. A passion for dress and ornament pervaded all ranks. That of the princesses and ladies of high rank, says Al Kattib, one of their own writers, was carried to a height of luxury and magnificence that bordered on delirium. They wore girdles and bracelets and anklets of gold and silver, wrought with exquisite art and delicacy and studded with jacinths, chrysolites, emeralds, and other precious stones. They were fond of braiding and decorating their beautiful long tresses or confining them in knots sparkling with jewels. They were finely formed, excessively fair, graceful in their manners, and fascinating in their conversation; when they smiled, says Al Kattib, they displayed teeth of dazzling whiteness, and their breath was as the perfume of flowers.

The Moorish cavaliers, when not in armor, delighted in dressing themselves in Persian style, in garments of wool, of silk, or cotton of the finest texture, beautifully wrought with stripes of various colors. In winter they wore, as an outer garment, the African cloak or Tunisian albornoz, but in the heat of summer they arrayed themselves in linen of spotless whiteness. The same luxury prevailed in their military equipments. Their armor was inlaid and chased with gold and silver. The sheaths of their scimetars were richly labored and enamelled, the blades were of Damascus bearing texts from the Koran or martial and amorous mottoes; the belts were of golden filigree studded with gems; their poniards of Fez were wrought in the arabesque fashion; their lances bore gay bandaroles; their horses were sumptuously caparisoned with housings of green and crimson velvet, wrought with silk and enamelled with gold and silver. All this warlike luxury of the youthful chivalry was encouraged by the Moorish kings, who ordained that no tax should be imposed on the gold and silver employed in these embellishments; and the same exception was extended to the bracelets and other ornaments worn by the fair dames of Granada.

Of the chivalrous gallantry which prevailed between the sexes in this romantic period of Moorish history we have traces in the thousand ballads which have come down to our day, and which have given a tone and coloring to Spanish amatory literature and to everything in Spain connected with the tender passion.

War was the normal state of Granada and its inhabitants; the common people were subject at any moment to be summoned to the field, and all the upper class was a brilliant chivalry. The Christian princes, so successful in regaining the rest of the Peninsula, found their triumphs checked at the mountain-boundaries of this kingdom. Every peak had its atalaya, or watch-tower, ready to make its fire by night or to send up its column of smoke by day, a signal of invasion at which the whole country was on the alert. To penetrate the defiles of this perilous country, to surprise a frontier fortress, or to make a foray into the Vega and a hasty ravage within sight of the very capital were among the most favorite and daring exploits of the Castilian chivalry. But they never pretended to hold the region thus ravaged; it was sack, burn, plunder, and away; and these desolating inroads were retaliated in kind by the Moorish cavaliers, whose greatest delight was a "tala," or predatory incursion, into the Christian territories beyond the mountains.

A partisan warfare of this kind had long existed between Granada and its most formidable antagonists, the kingdoms of Castile and Leon. It was one which called out the keen yet generous rivalry of Christian and Moslem cavaliers, and gave rise to individual acts of chivalrous gallantry and daring prowess; but it was one which was gradually exhausting the resources and sapping the strength of Granada. One of the latest of its kings, therefore, Aben Ismael by name, disheartened by a foray which had laid waste the Vega, and conscious that the balance of warfare was against his kingdom, made a truce in 1457 with Henry IV., king of Castile and Leon, stipulating to pay him an annual tribute of twelve thousand doblas or pistoles of gold, and to liberate annually six hundred Christian captives, or in default of captives to give an equal number of Moors as hostages,-all to be delivered at the city of Cordova.*

* Garibay, Compend., 1.17, c. 3.

The truce, however, was of a partial nature, with singular reservations. It did not include the Moorish frontier toward Jaen, which was to remain open for the warlike enterprises of either nation; neither did it prohibit sudden attacks upon towns and castles, provided they were mere forays, conducted furtively, without sound of trumpet or display of banners or pitching of camps or regular investment, and that they did not last above three days.*

* Zurita, Anales de Aragon, 1. 20, c. 42; Mariana, Hist. de Espana 1.

25, c. 1; Bleda, Coron. de los Moros, l. 5, c. 3.

Aben Ismael was faithful in observing the conditions of the truce, but they were regarded with impatience by his eldest son, Muley Abul Hassan, a prince of a fiery and belligerent spirit, and fond of casing himself in armor and mounting his war-horse. He had been present at Cordova at one of the payments of tribute, and had witnessed the scoffs and taunts of the Christians, and his blood boiled whenever he recalled the humiliating scene. When he came to the throne in 1465, on the death of his father, he ceased the payment of the tribute altogether, and it was sufficient to put him into a tempest of rage only to mention it.

"He was a fierce and warlike infidel," says the pious Fray Antonio Agapida; "his bitterness against the holy Christian faith had been signalized in battle during the lifetime of his father, and the same diabolical spirit of hostility was apparent in his ceasing to pay this most righteous tribute."

The flagrant want of faith of Muley Abul Hassan in fulfilling treaty stipulations passed unresented during the residue of the reign of Henry the Impotent, and the truce was tacitly continued without the enforcement of tribute during the first three years of the reign of his successors, Ferdinand and Isabella of glorious and happy memory, who were too much engrossed by civil commotions in their own dominions, and by a war of succession waged with them by the king of Portugal, to risk an additional conflict with the Moorish sovereign.

When, however, at the expiration of the term of truce, Muley Abul Hassan sought a renewal of it, the pride and piety of the Castilian sovereigns were awakened to the flagrant defalcation of the infidel king, and they felt themselves called upon, by their dignity as monarchs and their religious obligations as champions of the faith, to make a formal demand for the payment of arrearages.

In the year of grace 1478, therefore, Don Juan de Vera, a zealous and devout knight, full of ardor for the faith and loyalty to the Crown, was sent as ambassador for the purpose. He was armed at all points, gallantly mounted, and followed by a moderate but well-appointed retinue: in this way he crossed the Moorish frontier, and passed slowly through the country, looking round him with the eyes of a practised warrior and carefully noting its military points and capabilities. He saw that the Moor was well prepared for possible hostilities. Every town was strongly fortified. The Vega was studded with towers of refuge for the peasantry: every pass of the mountain had its castle of defence, every lofty height its watch-tower. As the Christian cavaliers passed under the walls of the fortresses, lances and scimetars flashed from their battlements, and the Moorish sentinels darted from their dark eyes glances of hatred and defiance. It was evident that a war with this kingdom must be a war of posts, full of doughty peril and valiant enterprise, where every step must be gained by toil and bloodshed, and maintained with the utmost difficulty. The warrior spirit of the cavaliers kindled at the thoughts, and they were impatient for hostilities; "not," says Antonio Agapida, "from any thirst for rapine and revenge, but from that pure and holy indignation which every Spanish knight entertained at beholding this beautiful dominion of his ancestors defiled by the footsteps of infidel usurpers. It was impossible," he adds, "to contemplate this delicious country, and not long to see it restored to the dominion of the true faith and the sway of the Christian monarchs."

Arrived at the gates of Granada, Don Juan de Vera and his companions saw the same vigilant preparations on the part of the Moorish king. His walls and towers were of vast strength, in complete repair, and mounted with lombards and other heavy ordnance. His magazines were well stored with the munitions of war; he had a mighty host of foot-soldiers, together with squadrons of cavalry, ready to scour the country and carry on either defensive or predatory warfare. The Christian warriors noted these things without dismay; their hearts rather glowed with emulation at the thoughts of encountering so worthy a foe. As they slowly pranced through the streets of Granada they looked round with eagerness on the stately palaces and sumptuous mosques, on its alcayceria or bazar, crowded with silks and cloth of silver and gold, with jewels and precious stones, and other rich merchandise, the luxuries of every clime; and they longed for the time when all this wealth should be the spoil of the soldiers of the faith, and when each tramp of their steeds might be fetlock deep in the blood and carnage of the infidels.

The Moorish inhabitants looked jealously at this small but proud array of Spanish chivalry, as it paraded, with that stateliness possessed only by Spanish cavaliers, through the renowned gate of Elvira. They were struck with the stern and lofty demeanor of Don Juan de Vera and his sinewy frame, which showed him formed for hardy deeds of arms, and they supposed he had come in search of distinction by defying the Moorish knights in open tourney or in the famous tilt with reeds for which they were so renowned, for it was still the custom of the knights of either nation to mingle in these courteous and chivalrous contests during the intervals of war. When they learnt, however, that he was come to demand the tribute so abhorrent to the ears of the fiery monarch, they observed that it well required a warrior of his apparent nerve to execute such an embassy.

Muley Abul Hassan received the cavalier in state, seated on a magnificent divan and surrounded by the officers of his court, in the Hall of Ambassadors, one of the most sumptuous apartments of the Alhambra. When De Vera had delivered his message, a haughty and bitter smile curled the lip of the fierce monarch. "Tell your sovereigns," said he, "that the kings of Granada, who used to pay tribute in money to the Castilian crown, are dead. Our mint at present coins nothing but blades of scimetars and heads of lances." *

* Garibay, 1. 40, c. 29; Conde, Hist. Arab., p. 4, c. 34.

The defiance couched in this proud reply was heard with secret satisfaction by Don Juan de Vera, for he was a bold soldier and a devout hater of the infidels, and he saw iron war in the words of the Moorish monarch. Being master, however, of all points of etiquette, he retained an inflexible demeanor, and retired from the apartment with stately and ceremonious gravity. His treatment was suited to his rank and dignity: a magnificent apartment in the Alhambra was assigned to him, and before his departure a scimetar was sent to him by the king, the blade of the finest Damascus steel, the hilt of agate enriched with precious stones, and the guard of gold. De Vera drew it, and smiled grimly as he noticed the admirable temper of the blade. "His Majesty has given me a trenchant weapon," said he: "I trust a time will come when I may show him that I know how to use his royal present." The reply was considered a compliment, of course: the bystanders little knew the bitter hostility that lay couched beneath.

On his return to Cordova, Don Juan de Vera delivered the reply of the Moor, but at the same time reported the state of his territories. These had been strengthened and augmented during the weak reign of Henry IV. and the recent troubles of Castile. Many cities and strong places contiguous to Granada, but heretofore conquered by the Christians, had renewed their allegiance to Muley Abul Hassan, so that his kingdom now contained fourteen cities, ninety-seven fortified places, besides numerous unwalled towns and villages defended by formidable castles, while Granada towered in the centre as the citadel.

The wary Ferdinand, as he listened to the military report of Don Juan de Vera, saw that the present was no time for hostilities with a warrior kingdom so bristled over with means of defence. The internal discords of Castile still continued, as did the war with Portugal: under these circumstances he forbore to insist upon the payment of tribute, and tacitly permitted the truce to continue; but the defiance contained in the reply of Muley Abul Hassan remained rankling in his bosom as a future ground of war; and De Vera's description of Granada as the centre of a system of strongholds and rock-built castles suggested to him his plan of conquest-by taking town after town and fortress after fortress, and gradually plucking away all the supports before he attempted the capital. He expressed his resolution in a memorable pun or play upon the name of Granada, which signifies a pomegranate. "I will pick out the seeds of this pomegranate one by one," said the cool and crafty Ferdinand.

NOTE.-In the first edition of this work the author recounted a characteristic adventure of the stout Juan de Vera as happening on the occasion of this embassy; a further consultation of historical authorities has induced him to transfer it to a second embassy of De Vera's, which the reader will find related in a subsequent chapter.

Though Muley Abul Hassan was at peace in his external relations, a civil war raged in his harem, which it is proper to notice, as it had a fatal effect upon the fortunes of the kingdom. Though cruel by nature, he was uxorious and somewhat prone to be managed by his wives. Early in life he had married his kinswoman, Ayxa (or Ayesha), daughter of his great-uncle, the sultan Mohammed VII., surnamed El Hayzari, or the Left-handed. She was a woman of almost masculine spirit and energy, and of such immaculate and inaccessible virtue that she was generally called La Horra, or the Chaste.

By her he had a son, Abu Abdallah, or, as he is commonly named by historians, Boabdil. The court astrologers, according to custom, cast the horoscope of the infant, but were seized with fear and trembling as they regarded it. "Allah Akbar! God is great!" exclaimed they; "he alone controls the fate of empires. It is written in the book of fate that this child will one day sit upon the throne, but that the downfall of the kingdom will be accomplished during his reign." From that time the prince had been regarded with aversion by his father, and the prediction which hung over him and the persecutions to which he became subjected procured him the surname of El Zogoybi, or the Unfortunate. He grew up, however, under the protection of his valiant-hearted mother, who by the energy of her character long maintained an undisputed sway in the harem, until, as her youth passed away and her beauty declined, a formidable rival arose.

In one of the forays of the Moorish chivalry into the Christian territories they had surprised a frontier fortress commanded by Sancho Ximenes de Solis, a noble and valiant cavalier, who fell in bravely defending it. Among the captives was his daughter Isabella, then almost in her infancy, who was brought to Granada, delicately raised, and educated in the Moslem faith.* Her Moorish captors gave her the name of Fatima, but as she grew up her surpassing beauty gained her the surname of Zoraya, or the Morning Star, by which she has become known in history. Her charms at length attracted the notice of Muley Abul Hassan, and she soon became a member of his harem. Some have spoken of her as a Christian slave whom he had made his concubine; but others, with more truth, represent her as one of his wives, and ultimately his favorite sultana; and indeed it was often the case that female captives of rank and beauty, when converted to the faith of Islam, became united to the proudest and loftiest of their captors.

* Cronica del Gran Cardinal, cap. 71.

Zoraya soon acquired complete ascendancy over the mind of Muley Abul Hassan. She was as ambitious as she was beautiful, and, having become the mother of two sons, looked forward to the possibility of one of them sitting on the throne of Granada. These ambitious views were encouraged, if not suggested, by a faction which gathered round her inspired by kindred sympathies. The king's vizier, Abul Cacim Vanegas, who had great influence over him, was, like Zoraya, of Christian descent, being of the noble house of Luque. His father, one of the Vanegas of Cordova, had been captured in infancy and brought up as a Moslem.* From him sprang the vizier, Abul Cacim Vanegas, and his brother, Reduan Vanegas, likewise high in rank in the court of Muley Abul Hassan, and they had about them numerous and powerful connections, all basking in court favor. Though Moslems in faith, they were all drawn to Zoraya by the tie of foreign and Christian descent, and sought to elevate her and her children to the disparagement of Ayxa la Horra and her son Boabdil. The latter, on the other hand, were supported by the noble and once-potent family of the Abencerrages and by Aben Comixa, alcayde of the Alhambra; and between these two factions, headed by rival sultanas, the harem of Muley Abul Hassan became the scene of inveterate jealousies and intrigues, which in time, as will be shown, led to popular commotions and civil wars.**

* Cura de los Palacios, Hist. de los Reyes Catol., cap. 56.

* *It is to be noted that several historians have erroneously

represented Zoraya as the mother of Boabdil, instead of Ayxa la Horra,

and the Abencerrages as the opponents of Boabdil, instead of his

strenuous adherents. The statement in the text is according to the most

reliable authorities.

While these female feuds were threatening Muley Abul Hassan with trouble and disaster at home, his evil genius prompted him to an enterprise which involved him in tenfold danger from abroad. The reader has already been apprised of a singular clause in the truce existing between the Christians and the Moors, permitting hasty dashes into each other's territories and assaults of towns and fortresses, provided they were carried on as mere forays and without the parade of regular warfare. A long time had elapsed, however, without any incursion of the kind on the part of the Moors, and the Christian towns on the frontiers had, in consequence, fallen into a state of the most negligent security. In an unlucky moment Muley Abul Hassan was tempted to one of these forays by learning that the fortress of Zahara, on the frontier between Ronda and Medina Sidonia, was but feebly garrisoned and scantily supplied, and that its alcayde was careless of his charge. This important post was built on the crest of a rocky mountain, with a strong castle perched above it upon a cliff, so high that it was said to be above the flight of birds or drift of clouds. The streets and many of the houses were mere excavations wrought out of the living rock. The town had but one gate, opening to the west and defended by towers and bulwarks. The only ascent to this cragged fortress was by roads cut in the rock, so rugged in many places as to resemble broken stairs. In a word, the impregnable security of Zahara had become so proverbial throughout Spain that a woman of forbidding and inaccessible virtue was called a Zaharena. But the strongest fortress and sternest virtue have weak points, and require unremitting vigilance to guard them: let warrior and dame take warning from the fate of Zahara.