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Jennifer Fox

Beginning Breadboarding
Physical Computing and the Basic Building Blocks
of Computers
Jennifer Fox
Seattle, WA, USA

ISBN 978-1-4842-9217-4 e-ISBN 978-1-4842-9218-1

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-9218-1

© Jennifer Fox 2023

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively
licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is
concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in
any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks,

service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the
absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general
use.

The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the
advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate
at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Apress imprint is published by the registered company APress

Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY
10004, U.S.A.
Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the
author in this book is available to readers on the Github repository:
https://github.com/Apress/Beginning-Breadboarding. For more
detailed information, please visit http://www.apress.com/source-code.
Acknowledgments
This is my first book and I want to acknowledge that I am proud of
myself for chugging away on it, slowly but surely. Next, A HUGE THANK
YOU to my wonderful friend and part of my chosen family, Joshua
Vasquez, for helping me “LEGO-tize” the transistor logic gates (and for
the bomb cover photo!).
Another massive boat of thanks to my parents for instilling in me
the importance of education and for their support and encouragement
in the wild adventures of my life, many of which involve me “eating an
elephant.”
Thank you to the Adafruit folks, Phil and Limor, for the kit and for
your long-term support. I appreciate and admire y’all.
And, of course, thank you to everyone who is part of my chosen
family and my community. I deeply appreciate your questions about my
book, your excitement, and your celebrations of my wins. I am truly
grateful to be a part of a loving and supportive community. ☺
Table of Contents
Chapter 1:​Introduction, Supplies, and Circuit Diagrams
Safety Rules
Safety Rule 1:​Short Circuits
Safety Rule 2:​Right-Hand Rule
Safety Rule 3:​What’s More Dangerous – Electrical Current
or Voltage?​
Safety Rule 4:​Use the Right Tools and Components and Use
Them Properly
Tools and Materials
Reading Circuit Diagrams
What Other Information Is in This Diagram?​
How to Read This Book
Grab These Materials
Summary
Chapter 2:​Paper Circuits
What Is Electricity?​
Grab These Materials
Atoms:​The Building Blocks of Nature
Project 2-1:​Static Electricity!
Current, Voltage, and AC vs.​DC
Project 2-2:​Playing with Voltage
Let’s Make Our First Circuit!
Grab These Materials
Project 2-3:​Let There Be Light!
Project 2-4:​Making It Bigger!
 Project 2-5 (Optional):​Paper Circuits!
Add All the Lights! (a.​k.​a.​Series and Parallel Circuits)
Grab These Materials
Project 2-6:​Connecting Two LEDs to One Battery
Project 2-7:​Our First Parallel Circuit
Project 2-8:​More Parallel Circuits!
Project 2-9:​Our First Series Circuit
Summary of Parallel and Series Circuits
Electromagnetic Spectrum
Going Further
Project Ideas!
Summary
Chapter 3:​Breadboards and Outputs
Breadboard Anatomy
Grab These Materials
Breadboarding:​Lights On!
Grab These Materials
Project 3-1:​Light It Up on a Breadboard!
Project 3-2:​All the Lights!!
Making Sounds!
Grab These Materials
Project 3-3:​Circuit Sounds!
Schematic Symbol for a Speaker
How Does Electricity Make Sounds?​?​
Making Movement!
Grab These Materials
 Project 3-4:​Motor Motion!
Schematic Symbols for a Motor
How Is Electricity Making the Motor Spin?​?​
Lights and Sounds and Motion, Oh My! But… Why?​
Going Further
Summary
Chapter 4:​Controlling Electricity (Passive Components)
Resistance:​Limiting Electricity
Grab These Materials
Project 4-1:​Modifying Lights with Resistors!
Resistor Schematic Symbol
How Do Resistors Work?​
Project 4-2 (Optional):​Draw a Resistor!
Grab These Materials
A Mini Introduction to Ohm’s Law!
Potentiometers:​Adjustable Resistors!
Grab These Materials
Project 4-3:​Dim the Light!
Potentiometers:​How Do They Work?​
Project 4-4:​Dim More Lights!!
Potentiometer Schematic Symbol
Capacitors:​Flood Gate Components!
Grab These Materials
Project 4-5:​Light Flash!
How Is a Capacitor like a Flood Gate?​
Schematic Symbol for a Capacitor
 Special Safety Note on Capacitors
Going Further
Summary
Chapter 5:​Interacting with Electricity via Buttons and Switches!
(Electromechanica​l Components)
Pushbuttons:​Hang onto Your Switch!
Grab These Materials
Project 5-1:​Light at Our Fingertips
Pushbuttons:​A Lifetime of Bouncing Back
Pushbutton Schematic Symbol
(Slide) Switches:​Set It and Forget It
Grab These Materials
Project 5-2:​Breadboard Flashlight
Slide Switches:​Stay in That State!
Permanent Switch Schematic Symbol
Project 5-4:​Lights and Motors!
Grab These Materials
Going Further
Summary
Chapter 6:​Encoding Information into Electricity! (Logic Gates Part
1)
Why Records Sound Better Than CDs
Logically Delicious! (Building Basic Logic Gates)
Grab These Materials
Project 6-2:​Gotta Push ’Em All! (Pushbuttons in Series)
AND Logic Gate Schematic Symbol
Project 6-3:​Push Any Button (Pushbuttons in Parallel)
 OR Logic Gate Schematic Symbol
How to Count with Just Two Fingers (a.​k.​a.​Binary Numbers)
Project 6-4:​Flip It and Reverse It! (NOT Gate)
Grab These Materials
NOT Logic Gate Schematic Symbol
Project 6-5:​Making Decisions with Logic Gates!
Grab These Materials
Going Further:​More Logic Gates and Project Ideas!
Quick Intro to Other Logic Gates:​NAND and NOR!
Build All the Projects!
Summary
Chapter 7:​Sensors!
Using Our Senses to Detect Sensors
Project 7-1:​The Wonderful World of Sensors
A Brief Inventory of Sensors
Analog vs.​Digital
What Kinds of Things Can We Sense with Electricity?​
Electronic Eyes:​Photoresistors!
Grab These Materials
Project 7-2:​Light-Sensitive Light
But Wait, Electronic Eyes?​! How Does That Work?​?​
Photoresistor Schematic Symbol
Electronic Touch:​Force-Sensing Resistors
Grab These Materials
Project 7-3:​Touch-Sensitive Light
FSR:​Converting Touch into Electricity
 FSR Schematic Symbol
Electronic Proprioception:​Tilt Sensors!
Grab These Materials
Project 7-4:​Gravity-Sensing Light
The Beautifully Simple Tilt Sensor
Tilt Sensor Schematic Symbol
Electronic Motion Sensing:​IR Sensors!
Grab These Materials
Project 7-5:​Sensing “invisible” light
Sensing Invisible Light
IR Break-Beam Schematic Symbol
Going Further:​All the Sensors and Fun Project Ideas!
Sensor Stuff!
Build All the Projects!
Summary
Chapter 8:​Transistors:​The Building Blocks of Computers!
Transistors As an Electronic Switch
Grab These Materials
Project 8-1:​Make an Electronic Switch
(FET) Transistor Schematic Symbol
Unraveling the Mystery of Transistors!
Semiconductors:​The Secret Sauce
Transistor Taxonomy
Transistors As Amplifiers
Grab These Materials
Project 8-3:​Make an Amplifier!
 P-cause We Can:​P-Channel FETs (Optional)
Grab These Materials
Project 8-4 (Optional):​P-Channel Switch
Going Further:​Transistor Time!
Summary
Chapter 9:​Logic Gates Round 2!
The Truth About Physical Computing
Grab These Materials
Projects 9-1 and 9-2:​ANDs and ORs Galore
Project 9-3:​NOT Gate with Transistors!
Concept Break:​Electric Ground!
Flashback to Voltage!
Ground As a Connection to Earth?​
Schematic Symbol for Ground
Logic Gates:​The More, the Merrier!
Grab These Materials
Project 9-4:​NOT Another Logic Gate! (Yes!)
Going Further!
Summary
Chapter 10:​A Simple Computer!
Cascading Logic Gates:​A (Controlled) Electrical Waterfall!
Grab These Materials
Project 10-1:​NOT It!
Project 10-2:​Our One and Only XOR Gate
XOR Schematic Symbol
NOT-ing the XOR
 How to Build a (Simple) Computer
Boolean Algebra and Binary Addition
How Does This Translate to Computers?​?​
Bringing Bits Along for the Ride:​Binary Adders!
Single-Bit Adder
2-Bit Adder
Adding It All Together:​Single-Digit Binary Adder!
Grab These Materials
Where Do We Go from Here?​
I Hear You and I See (IC) You:​An Easier and Faster Way to Build
“Smart” Circuits
Going Further:​Logic Gate Circuits and Beyond!
Further Exploration with Logic Gates!
Beyond Logic Gates!
Summary
Appendix 1:​Applied Project 1:​Using a Multimeter!
Appendix 2:​Applied Project 2:​Ohm’s Law!
Appendix 3:​Applied Project 3:​PCB Identification
Index
About the Author
Jennifer Fox
is an engineer, educator, and maker. After
dabbling in dark matter (Occidental
College, B.A. Physics), Fox studied
engineering (UCLA, M.S. Mechanical
Engineering) where she blended
electronics, art, and education to tackle
problems related to environmental and
social justice. Fox founded her company,
FoxBot Industries, in 2015 to provide an
arts-based approach to STEM education
and currently leads a team at Microsoft
doing maker-related work.
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
obtain their livelihood by fishing; and the increased opportunities for
intercourse with the world have produced noticeable modifications in
the character of these people, who, while deficient in none of the
manly qualities of the denizens of hill and fastness, seem less
uncouth, and are possessed of a greater degree of intelligence than
their brethren of the interior. The customs of these famous
mountaineers, variously known as Basques, Asturians, Cantabrians,
and Galicians, according to the respective localities they inhabit,
have varied but little in the course of many centuries. They have
ever been distinguished by simplicity of manners, sturdy honesty,
unselfish hospitality, and a spirit of independence which has seldom
failed to successfully assert itself against the most persistent
attempts at conquest. A mysterious and unknown origin attaches to
the Basques, whose strange tongue and weird traditions are
supposed to connect them with the original inhabitants of the
Peninsula, and who, in this isolated wilderness, have preserved the
memory of one of the aboriginal races of Europe. The rugged
districts lying to the westward of what is now called Biscay, the
home of the Basques, were formerly inhabited by the Iberians, a
branch of the Celts, which, by force of circumstances and through
the necessities of self-preservation, has become fused with colonists
from the southern provinces until its distinguishing features have
disappeared. The well-known bravery of the defenders of this bleak
and forbidding country, its poverty—which offers no allurements to
either the avarice or the vanity of royal power—its ravines swept by
piercing winds, and its mountains draped with perpetual clouds, long
secured for it freedom from invasion. The Carthaginians never
passed its borders. The Romans, under Augustus, succeeded, after
infinite difficulties, in establishing over its territory a precarious
authority, disputed at intervals by fierce and stubborn insurrections.
It yielded a reluctant obedience to the Visigothic kings, whose
notions of liberty, coarse tastes, barbaric customs, and frank
demeanor were more congenial with the nature of the wild Iberian
than the luxurious habits and crafty maxims of Punic and Latin
civilization.
 The most barren and inaccessible part of this secluded region at
the time of the Moslem conquest was that embraced by the modern
principality of the Asturias. A formidable barrier of lofty peaks,
whose passes readily eluded the eye of the stranger, blocked the
way of a hostile army. Within this wall a diversified landscape of
mountain and valley presented itself, with an occasional village,
whose huts, clustered upon a hill-side or straggling along some
narrow ravine, indicated the presence of a settlement of shepherds
or husbandmen. These dwellings, whose counterparts are to be seen
to-day in the wildest districts of the Asturias and Galicia, were rude
hovels constructed of stones and unhewn timbers, thatched with
straw, floored with rushes, and provided with a hole in the roof to
enable the smoke to escape. Their walls and ceilings were smeared
with soot and grease, and every corner reeked with filth and
swarmed with vermin. The owners of these habitations were, in
appearance and intelligence, scarcely removed from the condition of
savages. They dressed in sheepskins and the hides of wild beasts,
which, unchanged, remained in one family for many generations.
The salutary habit of ablution was never practised by them. Their
garments were never cleansed, and were worn as long as their
tattered fragments held together. Their food was composed of
nutritious roots and herbs and of the products of the chase, a diet
sometimes varied by vegetables, whose seeds had been imported
from the south, and by a coarse bread made from the meal of
chestnuts and acorns. Total ignorance of the courtesies and
amenities of social life prevailed; privacy was unknown; and the
peasant entered the hut of his neighbor without fear or ceremony.
An independent political organization existed in each of these
communities, whose isolated situation, extreme poverty, and
primitive manners dispensed with the necessity for the complicated
and expensive machinery of government. Old age, as among many
nations in the infancy of their existence, was a title to authority and
respect, and the elevation of an individual to a certain degree of
power was not unusual when he had distinguished himself among
his fellows for skill in hunting or valor in warfare. Christian
missionaries had, centuries before, carried the precepts of the
Gospel into the depths of this wilderness, and chapels and altars,
where the idolatrous practices of Druidical superstition were
strangely mingled with the ceremonies of the Roman Catholic ritual,
attested the persistence of a faith which had existed for ages. Many
of the personal habits and social customs of the Iberians, while well
deserving the attention of the antiquary, were of such a nature as to
preclude description. Under these manifold disadvantages were now
to be laid the foundations of an empire destined to embrace the
richest portions of two great continents; to extend its language, its
ideas, its policy, its religion, its authority, to the extreme limits of a
world as yet unknown; to humble the pride of the most renowned
sovereigns of Europe; to perfect the most formidable engine for the
suppression of free thought and individual liberty which the malignity
of superstition has ever devised; to perform achievements and
accomplish results unparalleled in the most fantastic creations of
romance; and to devote to extermination entire races whose sole
offence was that they had never heard of the God of their
persecutors,—a people whose civilization was far inferior to their
own.
The terror inspired by the approach of the Saracens, after the
battle of the Guadalete, had driven great masses of fugitives to the
north. Such of these as escaped the hardships of flight and the
swords of their pursuers sought refuge in the most secret recesses
of the Asturian mountains. They carried with them their portable
property, their household gods, all the relics of the saints, all the
sacred furniture of the altars, which they had been able to rescue
from the sacrilegious grasp of the infidel. The refugees had forgotten
alike, in the presence of universal misfortune, the long-cherished
prejudices of race and the artificial distinctions of rank; and Goth,
Roman, Iberian, and Basque, master and slave, mingled together
upon a friendly equality. Received by the frank and hospitable
mountaineers with a sympathy which was strengthened by the bond
of a common religion, the unhappy fugitives became reconciled to
the privations of a life which secured to them immunity from infidel
oppression; and, by intimate association and intermarriage with their
benefactors, formed in time a new nation, in which, however,
mixture of blood and altered physical surroundings produced their
inevitable effects, causing the traits of the Iberian to predominate, in
a conspicuous degree, over those of the Latin and the Goth. As the
rest of the Peninsula submitted to the domination of the Moors, the
population of this province was largely augmented. Persecution,
arising during the civil wars, still further increased immigration;
deposed prelates, ruined artisans, and discontented slaves sought
the companionship and aid of their fellow-sectaries; many, in
apprehension of future evil, voluntarily abandoned their possessions;
and the Asturias became the common refuge of all who had suffered
as well as of all who were willing to renounce a life of comparative
ease and dependence for the toils and privations which accompanied
the enjoyment of political and religious liberty. With the advantages
of freedom were also blended associations of a more sacred
character. The greater number of the most celebrated shrines of a
country remarkable for the virtues of its relics and the splendor of its
temples had been desecrated by the invader. He had destroyed
many churches. Others he had appropriated for the uses of his own
religion. The piety of their ministers had, however, secreted, and
borne away in safety, the most precious of those tokens of divine
interposition whose efficacy had been established by the
performance of countless miracles supported by the unquestionable
testimony of the Fathers of the Church. Transported by reverent
hands from every part of the kingdom, these consecrated objects
were now collected in fastnesses impregnable to the enemies of
Christ. Where, therefore, could the devout believer better hope for
security and happiness than under the protection of holy souvenirs
which had received the oblations and the prayers of successive
generations of his ancestors? The wars and revolutions of more than
a thousand years have not diminished the feeling of popular
veneration attaching to these mementos of the martyrs, which,
enshrined in quaint and costly reliquaries of crystal and gold, are still
exhibited in the Cathedral of Oviedo.
 Engrossed with the cares which necessarily attended the
establishment of a new religion and the organization of a new
government, the first viceroys of Spain took no notice of the
embryotic state which was gradually forming in the northwestern
corner of the Peninsula. Their scouting parties, which had
penetrated to the borders of the Asturias, had long since acquainted
them with the severity of the climate and the general sterility of the
soil. No booty, save, perhaps, some sacred vessels and a few flocks
of sheep, was there to tempt the avarice of the marauder. Domiciled
in the genial regions of the South, whose natural advantages
continually recalled the voluptuous countries of the Orient, the Moor
instinctively shrank from contact with the piercing winds and blinding
tempests of the mountains far more than from an encounter with
the uncouth and warlike savages who defended this inhospitable
land. Musa had already entered Galicia at the head of his troops
when he was recalled to Damascus by the peremptory mandate of
the Khalif; and foraging parties had, on different occasions, ravaged
many of the settlements of the Basques; but as yet the Moslem
banners had never waved along the narrow pathways leading into
the Asturian solitudes, nor had the echoes of the Moorish atabal
resounded from the stupendous walls which protected the surviving
remnant of the Visigothic monarchy and the last hope of Christian
faith and Iberian independence.
At an early period, whose exact date the uncertainty of the
accounts transmitted to us renders it impossible to determine, the
settlements of the coast fell into the hands of the Saracens, who
fortified the town of Gijon, a place whose size might not improperly
assert for it the claims of metropolitan importance. The government
of this city was entrusted to one of the most distinguished officers
who had served in the army of Tarik, the former Emir, Othman-Ibn-
Abu-Nesa, who, as we have already seen, having contracted a
treasonable alliance with the Duke of Aquitaine, had been pursued
and put to death by the soldiers of Abdal-Rahman immediately
before the latter’s invasion of France.
 Their communications with the sea-coast having been thus
interrupted, the Asturians, impatient of confinement, determined to
secure an outlet by extending the limits of their territory upon the
southern slopes of the mountains. The adventurous spirit of the
mountaineers welcomed with ardor a proposal which must
necessarily be attended with every circumstance of excitement and
glory. Among the refugees who constituted the bulk of the
population were many who had seen service in the Visigothic army,
and some who were not unfamiliar with the tactics and military
evolutions of the Saracens. One of the most eminent of these was
Pelayus, a name associated with the most glorious traditions
interwoven with the origin of the monarchy of Spain. The
imagination of subsequent ecclesiastical chroniclers has exhausted
itself in attempts to exalt the character and magnify the exploits of
this hero. The Moorish authorities, however, while they afford but
scanty details concerning him, are entitled to far more credit, as
their material interests were not to be subserved by the fabrication
of spurious miracles and preposterous legends. From the best
accounts now attainable,—which, it must be confessed, are far from
reliable,—it appears that Pelayus was of the mixed race of Goth and
Latin. The Arabs invariably called him the “Roman,” an appellation
they were not in the habit of conferring upon such as were of the
pure blood of the Visigoths. He was of noble birth, had held an
important command in the army of Roderick, and was not less
esteemed for bravery and experience than for hatred of the infidel,
and for the reverent humility with which he regarded everything
connected with the ceremonies and the ministers of the Church. To
this chieftain, with the unanimous concurrence of both refugees and
natives, was now entrusted the perilous and doubtful enterprise of
openly defying the Saracen power. With the caution of a veteran,
and an enthusiasm worthy of a champion of the Faith, Pelayus
began to assemble his forces. The peasantry, ever alive to the
attractions of a military expedition, and the fugitives, whose present
distress recalled the more vividly their former prosperity, their
pecuniary losses, and their personal bereavements, incident to the
catastrophe which had befallen the nation, answered the call to
arms with equal alacrity. The army which placed itself at the disposal
of the new general did not probably number two thousand men. The
majority were clad in skins. But few wore armor,—antiquated suits of
mail which had rusted under the pacific rule of the successors of
Wamba and had survived the disasters of Merida and the Guadalete.
The Iberian javelin, the sling, and the short and heavy knife of the
Cantabrian peasant composed their offensive weapons. Not one in
ten had ever seen a battle. Not one in a hundred could understand
or appreciate the necessity for the uncomplaining patience and
implicit obedience indispensable to the soldier. Yet the soaring
ambition, the patriotic pride, the belief in the special protection of
heaven—feelings equal to the conquest of a world—rose high in the
bosoms of these savage mountaineers. Their courage was
unquestionable. Their native endurance, strengthened by simple
food and habitual exposure to the tempests of a severe climate and
the incessant exertions of a pastoral life, was far greater than that of
their enemies. To invest the cause with a religious character, and to
rouse to the highest pitch the fanaticism of the soldiery, a number of
priests attended, with censer and crucifix and all the sacred
emblems of ecclesiastical dignity. Of such materials was composed
the army whose posterity was led to victory by such captains as
Gonzalvo, Cortes, and Alva, and whose penniless and exiled
commander was destined to be the progenitor of a long line of
illustrious sovereigns.
The original realm of Pelayus afforded no indication of the
enormous dimensions to which it was destined to expand. It
embraced a territory five miles long by three miles wide. Its
population could not have exceeded fifteen hundred souls. Its
fighting men were not more than five hundred in number. The bulk
of the army was composed of Basques and Galicians, attracted by
the hope of spoil, held together for the moment only by the sense of
common danger; impatient of restraint; scarcely recognizing the
authority of popular assemblies of their own creation; valiant in
action; brutal in victory; selfish and cowardly in defeat. They were
without organization, officers, suitable arms, or commissariat. Of the
art of war, as practised by even semi-barbarians, they knew nothing.
Their military operations were controlled by the usual stratagems of
savages, the nocturnal attack, the sudden surprise, the ambuscade.
The civil system of the infant monarchy was no further advanced.
The exiled subjects of Roderick still retained, in some measure, the
maxims and traditions of government. The people, among whom
their lot was cast and who greatly outnumbered them, had, however,
little knowledge of, and no reverence for, the Visigothic Code. The
duchy of Cantabria, to which the latter mainly belonged, was never
more than a nominal fief of the kingdom of Toledo. The fueros, or
laws, by which they had been governed through successive foreign
dominations of the Peninsula were of immemorial antiquity. Their
long-preserved independence had nourished in their minds
sentiments of arrogance and assumed superiority which were often
carried to a ridiculous extreme. These influences had no small share
in the subsequent formation of the Spanish constitution.
Thus, in a desolate and barren region; insignificant in numbers;
destitute of resources; ignorant of the arts of civilization; without
military system or civil polity; with neither court, hierarchy, nor
capital; animated by the incentives of religious zeal and inherited
love of freedom, a handful of barbarians laid the foundations of the
renowned empire of Spain and the Indies.
The bustle which necessarily attended the warlike preparations of
Pelayus was not long in attracting the attention of the government of
Cordova. Information was conveyed to Anbasah-Ibn-Sohim, the
representative of the Khalif, concerning the league that had been
formed between the fugitive Goths and the denizens of the Asturias,
as well as of the objects of the expedition which was organizing in
the northern wilderness. The Emir, whose contempt for his enemies,
added to a profound ignorance of the character of the country they
inhabited, induced him to underestimate the difficulties to be
encountered in their subjection, did not deem it worth his while to
attack them in person. He naturally thought little was to be
apprehended from the irregular hostilities of a few refugees who had
retired with precipitation at the approach of the Moorish cavalry,
united with a horde of vagabond shepherds and hunters
unaccustomed to discipline and inexperienced in warfare. In his blind
depreciation of the prowess of his adversaries, Anbasah-Ibn-Sohim
left out of consideration many circumstances which influenced, in a
marked degree, the subsequent fortunes of the Moslem domination
in Spain. Their numerical inferiority was of trifling moment in a
country thoroughly familiar to its inhabitants, but hitherto
unexplored by the Saracens, and whose steep and tortuous
pathways afforded such facilities for resisting an intruder that points
might readily be selected where a score of men could, with little
effort, successfully withstand a thousand. The Emir took no account
of the mists which always enshrouding the sierra often entirely
obscured the landscape; of the dense forests which might so
effectually conceal the ambuscade; of the sudden and destructive
rise of the mountain torrents; of the dangers attendant upon the
landslide and the avalanche. Nor did he appreciate the feelings
which must have been inspired by the desperate situation in which
the Christians were placed. They were at bay in their last stronghold.
Once driven from the shelter of their friendly mountains nothing
remained for them but death or slavery. Their retreat into France
was cut off by the Arab column now advancing into Septimania.
Their brethren throughout the Peninsula had bowed before the
sceptre of the Khalif, and no assistance could be expected from
them. Their patriotic ardor was excited by the proud consciousness
of independence and by apprehensions of the degradation of
servitude; their pious frenzy was aroused by the destruction which
menaced the religion of their fathers. In their camp were the sole
memorials of a monarchy whose princes had dictated terms to the
Mistress of the World. Around them on every side were sacred relics
which had been visited from far and wide by pilgrims, whose
miraculous power in the healing of disease it was sacrilege to doubt,
and which had not only brought relief to the suffering but also
comfort and salvation in the hour of death. God had made them the
custodians of these treasures rescued from His desecrated altars;
truly He would not abandon them in time of peril. By every artifice
peculiar to their craft; by all the fervid appeals of eloquence; by
every promise of present and prospective advantage; and by every
threat of future retribution, the prelates inflamed the zeal of their
fanatical hearers. They, more than any other class, understood the
gravity of the situation. While not anticipating the power which the
sacerdotal order was to attain over the temporal affairs of the
Peninsula in coming centuries, they were not ignorant that the result
of the impending conflict involved its supremacy or their own
annihilation. Thus, at the very birth of the Spanish monarchy,
appears predominant the ecclesiastical power which contributed
more than all other causes to its eventual decay. Taking these facts
into consideration, it is evident that the conquest of the Asturias
would have required an ample force conducted by an experienced
commander, whose talents, however respectable, could hardly have
accomplished the task in a single campaign. But the Emir, who was
on the point of invading France and did not deign to delay his
expedition for the purpose of chastising a band of vagrant
barbarians, detached a division, under an officer named Alkamah, to
reduce the Asturias to subjection and exact the payment of tribute.
The Arab general, aside from the natural impediments which
obstructed the march of an army through one of the most rugged
localities of Europe, experienced but little trouble in his advance. The
scattered collections of hovels which he encountered were deserted.
No flocks were feeding on the hill-sides. All signs of cultivation were
obliterated, and everything which could afford subsistence to an
enemy had been removed or destroyed. The features of the entire
landscape were those of a primeval waste. Through the defiles,
without resistance, and almost without the sight of a human being
except his own soldiers, Alkamah penetrated to the very heart of the
Asturias, lured on by the wily mountaineers to a point where his
superior numbers, so far from availing him, would be a positive
disadvantage, and from whence retreat would be impossible.
Upon the eastern border of the wilderness, amidst a chaos of
rocks, forests, ravines, and streamlets, rises the imposing peak of
Auseba. The northern side of this mountain for a hundred feet from
its base presents a steep and frowning precipice closing one end of a
narrow valley, and whose almost perpendicular sides are only
accessible to the trained and venturesome native. A cave, in whose
depths three hundred men could readily be sheltered, exists in the
face of the cliff, and through the gorge beneath run the troubled
waters forming the source of the river Deva. A path, completely
commanded by the heights upon either side, winds through the
undergrowth and gives access to the cave and its environs, in former
times the resort of benighted goatherds. In this spot, admirably
adapted to purposes of defence, Pelayus determined to make his
final stand. All non-combatants were secreted in the forest.
Ambushes were posted along the only path by which an approach
was practicable. In the cavern, whose name, Covadonga, is still
revered by every Asturian noble and peasant, Pelayus concealed
himself with a body of men selected for their courage and the
superiority of their arms. Skirmishers now appeared in the front of
the Moslem army, which, with a confidence born of former success,
without hesitation followed its treacherous guides into the fatal
valley. No sooner was the command of Alkamah within arrow-shot of
the cave than the mountaineers sprang from their hiding-places.
Wild cries of defiance and expectant triumph echoed from the rocky
slopes of the ravine. From every hand the projectiles of the
Christians poured down upon the heads of their astonished foes.
When the ammunition of the bows and slings was exhausted, the
sturdy peasants rolled down great stones and trunks of trees, which
crushed a score of men at a single blow. Massed together, and
thrown into confusion by the unexpected attack, the Saracens could
not use their weapons to advantage. Their arrows rebounded
harmlessly from the rocks. The agility of their enemies and the
character of the ground prevented a hand-to-hand engagement,
which the inferior strength of the Christians naturally prompted them
to avoid. Unable to endure the storm of missiles which was rapidly
depleting their ranks, the Saracens attempted to retrace their steps.
The first intimation of a desire to retreat was the signal for
redoubled activity on the part of the Asturians. Pelayus and his band,
issuing from the cave, fell upon the rear of the enemy. The
detachments upon the flanks closed in, and the unfortunate
Moslems, surrounded and almost helpless, resigned themselves to
their fate. The battle became a massacre. To add to the discomfiture
of the invaders, a fearful tempest, which, in a latitude whose air is
always charged with moisture, often comes without warning, burst
upon the valley. In a few moments the little brook had swollen into a
roaring torrent. A section of the mountain-side, undermined and
already tottering and crowded with terror-stricken Saracens, gave
way, carrying with it hundreds of victims to be engulfed in the
rushing waters. A trifling number of fugitives, aided by the darkness
and the storm, succeeded in eluding the vigilance of the
mountaineers, but the great majority of those composing the
detachment, including all of its officers, perished. The estimated loss
of the Moslems varies, according to the nationality of the annalist,
from three thousand to one hundred and twenty-four thousand. In
this, as in all other instances where the statements of the Arab and
Christian writers of that age conflict, the preference should be given
to the assertions of the former. The valley of Covadonga is so
restricted in extent, especially where the battle took place, that it
would with difficulty afford standing room for twenty thousand
combatants. The vainglorious character of the northern Spaniard,
who possesses not a little of the braggadocio of his cousin, the
Gascon, has incited him to grossly magnify the importance of an
exploit which requires no exaggeration; and his fabulous accounts
have been recorded, with extravagant additions, by the ecclesiastical
historians of the Dark Ages, with whom mendacity was the rule and
accuracy the exception. Absolutely controlled by the prejudices of
their profession, they studiously embellished every tale which could
have a tendency to promote its interests and as carefully suppressed
all hostile testimony. The monkish writers, whose credulity kept pace
with their love of the marvellous, conceived that the glory of the
Church was in a direct ratio to the number of infidels exterminated
by her champions. To this motive are to be attributed the absurd
statements concerning the losses of the enemy in every victory won
by the Christian arms, a pernicious habit which was confirmed by the
improbability of subsequent detection arising from the universal
illiteracy of the age. The thorough unreliability of these old
chroniclers in this and other particulars which might directly or
indirectly affect the prestige of their order is calculated to cast
suspicion over their entire narratives. When we add to these gross
misrepresentations their meagre and confused accounts of the most
important events, their profound ignorance of the hidden motives of
human actions, their superstitious prejudices, and their incapacity of
appreciating, or even of understanding, the principles of historical
criticism, it may readily be perceived how arduous is the task of
those who attempt to bring order out of this literary chaos. To the
Arab writers, however, we can turn with a much greater degree of
confidence. They make no attempts to disguise the magnitude of
their reverses or to diminish the glory of their enemies. No
contemporaneous account of the battle of Covadonga has descended
to us. It was not for a century that its paramount importance
became manifest. The attention of the clergy during that turbulent
period was engrossed by the doubtful fortunes of the Church, and
the exactions consequent upon the changes produced by a constant
succession of rulers. The affairs of the entire Mohammedan empire
were in a turmoil. In the East the chiefs of desperate factions were
struggling for the throne of the khalifate. Africa was the scene of
perpetual insurrection, provoked and maintained by the indomitable
spirit of the Berbers. The Emirs of Spain, between the intervals of
civil discord, were nursing extravagant dreams of ambition,—visions
of the propagation of their faith, of the acquisition of new territories,
of the subjugation of infidels, of the extension of empire. The glance
of the viceroys was directed beyond the bleak Asturias towards the
fertile plains of Southern France. The execution of the gigantic
enterprise projected by the genius of Musa occupied their thoughts,
and they were ignorant or careless of the aspirations of a handful of
peasants, upon the issue of whose prowess and constancy were,
even now, impending the existence of their dominion and the
destinies of the Peninsula.
The meagre notices of the battle of Covadonga transmitted by
Moorish chroniclers indicate that it was not considered a great
disaster, and that its effects upon the posterity of both Christian and
Moslem could not have been dreamed of. Yet from this eventful day
practically dates the beginning of the overthrow of the Arab
domination, not yet firmly established in its seat of power. Then was
inaugurated the consolidation of mountain tribes, soon to be
followed by the union of great provinces and kingdoms under the
protection of the Spanish Crown. At that time was first thoroughly
demonstrated the value of harmonious co-operation among factions
long arrayed against each other in mutual hostility. Thence was
derived the germ of freedom, which successfully asserted its rights
under the frown of royalty, and, incorporated into the constitution of
Aragon, long interposed a formidable obstacle to the encroachments
of arbitrary and despotic sovereigns. During that epoch, by the
fusion of races, were laid the foundations of that noble and sonorous
idiom, unsurpassed in simplicity of construction, in conciseness and
elegance of diction, in clear and harmonious resonance. Then was
manifested for the first time the adventurous and daring spirit which
carried the banners of Spain beyond the Mississippi, the Andes, and
the Pacific. Then was instituted the scheme of ecclesiastical policy
which, perfected by a succession of able and aspiring churchmen,
placed the throne of Europe’s greatest monarchy under the tutelage
of the primacy of Toledo. Then originated that fierce and
interminable contest—first for self-preservation, then for plunder,
lastly for empire—which for a thousand years engrossed the
attention of the world.
The renown acquired by Pelayus through the victory of
Covadonga raised him at once from the position of general to the
dignity of king. In his election the traditions of the ancient Gothic
constitution were observed. The sentiments of freedom innate in the
mountaineer of every land are reluctant to admit the superiority
implied by the laws of hereditary descent or by the exercise of
unlimited authority. The rude ceremonies by which regal
prerogatives were conceded to this guerilla chieftain could not
suggest to the wildest visionary the possibility of the gorgeous
ceremonial of the Spanish court or of the absolute power exercised
by Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second. It is not improbable that
the commands of Pelayus were frequently disputed by his half-
savage retainers. But it may well be doubted if among all the nations
which composed the vast dominions of the House of Austria could
have been found an equal number of adherents more faithful in
misfortune, more intrepid in danger, than those who formed the little
band of the exiled hero. The immunity granted the Christians after
their triumph would seem to rather imply contempt by the princes of
Cordova than their discouragement or any apprehension of further
misfortune. The moral effect of the victory, if imperceptible on the
Arabs, produced at once most significant results in the regions
bordering on the Asturias. The threatening attitude of the fishermen
necessitated the evacuation of the coast, and Othman-Ibn-Abu-
Nesa, Governor of Gijon, abandoned his charge, and, by a forced
march, joined his countrymen beyond the mountains. The warlike
spirit spread fast through Cantabria and Galicia, and was even felt
upon the borders of what is now Leon and Castile; the Saracen
colonists who had established themselves in the most fertile districts
were exterminated; and the religious aspect of the struggle, which
seemed to identify the cause of the insurgents with that of the
Almighty, crowded the squalid hovels of the hospitable Asturians
with thousands of fugitives who sought protection and liberty in the
society of their friends and kinsmen.
Neither history nor tradition has ascribed to Pelayus any other
military achievements than the famous one which signalized his
accession to supreme power. In the retirement of his little kingdom,
for the remainder of his days, he employed the security, for which he
was indebted to the contempt of his enemies, in consolidating his
authority; in the formation of a plan of government; in the erection
of churches, shrines, and monasteries; and in encouraging among
his subjects the pursuit of agriculture. His extreme devotion to the
interests of the Church has obtained for his memory the grateful
acknowledgment of the priesthood; while the little cross borne by
him, in lieu of a standard, at Covadonga, and still preserved at
Oviedo, is regarded with sentiments of peculiar reverence by the
peasantry as a symbol whose miraculous powers were confirmed by
the hand of God, and whose virtues were transmitted to the
magnificent emblems of the Catholic hierarchy, which, the
successors of the Roman eagles, sanctified in distant lands the
explorations and the conquests of the Christian monarchs of the
Peninsula.
The reign of Pelayus lasted thirteen years. Such were the benefits
resulting from its munificence to the clergy and his justice to the
people that, at his death, the sentiments of loyalty and gratitude
overcame the traditions of centuries and the prejudice against
hereditary descent, and Favila, his son, was permitted to succeed
him by the tacitly admitted right of inheritance.
Little is known of the life of Favila excepting that it was passed in
peace. Without aspirations to enlarge the circuit of his dominions,
and destitute of all desire for military renown, he preferred the rude
society of his companions and the excitements of the chase to the
perilous and doubtful honors of warfare. Two years after his
accession he was torn to pieces by a wild boar, whose fury he had
rashly provoked under circumstances which admitted of no escape.
He was buried by the side of his father in the church of Cangas de
Onis, an insignificant hamlet not far from the battle-field of
Covadonga, which was already dignified by the title of capital of the
Asturias, and whose church was for many generations afterwards
the pantheon of its princes.
Favila left no sons of sufficient age to assume the responsibilities
of government, while the exigencies of the time demanded the
services of a ruler possessed of talents and experience. The right of
election was, as of old, once more asserted to the exclusion of the
claims of primogeniture; and Alfonso I., son of the Duke of Cantabria
and son-in-law of Pelayus, was, by common consent of the principal
men of the infant nation, invested with the regal authority. The new
king was a noted warrior, who had been the comrade-in-arms of
Pelayus. His martial tastes and unflinching resolution were only
surpassed by his zeal for the Christian faith, which acquired for him
the appellation of “Catholic,” so highly prized by his descendants,
and which is still the most revered title of the head of the Spanish
monarchy. The duchy of Cantabria, whose ancient limits had,
however, been greatly curtailed by the encroachments of the Moors
and the annexations of Pelayus, became, through the exaltation of
its lord, an integral part of the Asturian kingdom.
The unquenchable fires of crusade and conquest burned fiercely
in the breast of Alfonso. With all the impetuosity of his nature he
announced his intention of waging ceaseless war against the infidel.
The condition of the provinces subject to his jurisdiction had
undergone radical changes since the election of Pelayus twenty
years before. The population had enormously increased, partly from
natural causes, but principally through immigration promoted by the
love of liberty and by the destructive revolutions instigated by the
vengeance or ambition of the conquerors. Villages, whose rude but
comparatively comfortable dwellings replaced the filthy cabins of
former times, occupied the picturesque valleys. Chapels and
monasteries dotted the mountain-sides. Public affairs were
administered according to a system, crude indeed, but framed upon
the model of the Visigothic constitution, whose principles were not
inconsistent with both the assertion of the prerogatives of royalty
and the enjoyment, in large measure, of the blessings of individual
freedom. The kingly authority was, in fact, as yet merely nominal. It
had been conferred by the votes of the people, and was understood
to be conditional upon the observance of the laws and the
maintenance of order. The power of the Asturian sovereign was at
this time not greater than that of many a petty feudal chieftain of
Germany, and was far inferior to that possessed by the French
Mayors of the Palace.
The occasion was propitious to the realization of the ambitious
designs of Alfonso. The emirate was temporarily vacant through the
absence of Okbah, its head, in Africa. Anarchy, with all its nameless
horrors, prevailed in every portion of the Peninsula. The territory
acquired in France, whose occupation had shed so much lustre on
the Moslems and whose possession was designed as the preliminary
step to the subjugation of Europe, had, through the valor of the
Franks and the incapacity and jealousies of the emirs, with the
solitary exception of the city of Narbonne, been wrested from the
conqueror. The prestige of the heretofore invincible Saracens had
been lost by repeated reverses, crowned by the terrible misfortune
of Poitiers. In Galicia and the Basque provinces the peasantry had
delivered the greater portion of their country from the enemy and
were in full sympathy with the plans and aspirations of their Asturian
neighbors, although they resolutely kept aloof from political union
with them and declined to acknowledge the authority of their king.
The operations of Alfonso were characterized by the activity and
judgment of an experienced partisan. Passing suddenly into Galicia
he surprised Lugo, which had remained in the hands of the Arabs
since its capture by Musa, and soon afterwards occupied the
strongly fortified city of Tuy, appropriating the territory north of the
river Minho by the right of conquest. Thence he penetrated into
Lusitania, taking some of the principal towns of that province and
extending his march to the eastward until he had overrun all of the
region lying to the north of the range of mountains now known as
the Sierra Guadarrama.
The annalists who have mentioned the expeditions undertaken by
Alfonso I. have neglected to regulate their order of occurrence, and
attribute to the movements of the King a celerity which is almost
incredible. In fact, these much-vaunted conquests were nothing
more than mere forays. No permanent occupation of the country
was possible. The uninterrupted succession of calamities which had
descended upon it had transformed a region, never renowned for
great productiveness, into a desert. In the few fertile spots where
the industry of the Moor had obtained a foothold the fierce
squadrons of Alfonso blackened the smiling landscape with the fires
of destruction and carnage. Such towns and villages as lay in their
path were destroyed; the Moors were condemned to slavery; and
the Christians, despite their remonstrances, were compelled to
follow in the train of the invader, to accept from him homes in the
mountains, and to swear fidelity to the Crown. This policy of
increasing the population of his dominions by compulsory
immigration possessed at least the merit of originality, and was in
the end eminently successful. The reluctant colonists, whose cities
had been razed and whose lands had been devastated, were
deprived of all incentives to return to a region that could no longer
afford them subsistence. The ties of race and the precepts of religion
already united them to those whom, despite the violence they had
displayed, they could not consider as enemies. Distributed
judiciously in the districts most deficient in inhabitants, whose soil, in
many instances, was not more sterile than that which they had
formerly tilled, the new subjects of Alfonso soon became reconciled
to their altered condition of life. Their numbers greatly contributed to
the strength of the growing kingdom. Their traditions, prejudices,
and aspirations were identical with those of the Asturians. Complete
amalgamation was soon accomplished by intermarriage and by the
intimacies of commercial and social intercourse.
The operations of Alfonso are, for the most part, described with
even more confusion of dates and localities than that which
ordinarily characterizes the historical accounts of his age. Both the
love of the marvellous and the bias of superstition have combined to
magnify his achievements. Nevertheless, the account of no great
victory breaks the monotony of an endless recital of murder, pillage,
and conflagration. In the mountains, where every ravine favored an
ambuscade, the Christians were invincible, but upon the plain, even
when aided by the advantage of superior numbers, they were no
match for the Moorish cavalry. The vulnerable condition of the
country, which suffered from the inroads of the Asturian prince,
impressed him with the necessity of erecting suitable defensive
works along the borders of his own dominions. He therefore
established a line of castles upon the southern slope of the sierra,
dividing the present provinces of Old and New Castile, which were
then known under the common designation of Bardulia, and from
these fortified posts the two famous provinces have derived their
modern name.
 The reign of Alfonso does not seem to have known the blessings
of tranquillity. His expeditions were incessant, and their results
almost invariably successful. The Moors universally regarded him
with a fear which, far more than the profuse adulation of his
monkish biographers, confirms the prevailing idea of his prowess
and indicates the respect in which he was held by his enemies,
whose historians conferred upon him the honorable and significant
appellation of Ibnal-Saif, “The Son of the Sword.” At the time of his
death he had extended the limits of his kingdom until it embraced
nearly a fourth part of the entire Peninsula, reaching from upper
Aragon to the Atlantic, and from the Sierra Guadarrama to the Bay
of Biscay. Far to the south of the territory which acknowledged his
jurisdiction, a vast region had been swept by his inroads, and
remained depopulated through the very terror of his name. While his
resources did not enable him to retain possession of this neutral
ground, its accessibility to attack rendered it useless to the Saracens.
His death, in 756, was coincident with the accession to power of the
renowned House of Ommeyah, whose genius held in check for half a
century the patriotic impulses of the state which public disorder and
universal contempt had permitted to form under the eye of the
haughty emirs, an error of policy whose fatal consequences were not
even suspected until the evil was beyond all remedy.
Thus, within a few years, from an affrighted band of homeless
fugitives had arisen a nation whose power had already become
formidable. In the independent spirit of its assemblies, convoked to
elect a sovereign, were plainly discernible traces of that
constitutional liberty which subsequently acquired such importance
and produced such enduring political effects in the history of Spain.
The basis of the new ecclesiastical system, on the other hand,
consisted in a servile obedience to Rome, and was marked by none
of the conscious dignity and self-reliance peculiar to the ancient
Visigothic priesthood. A series of misfortunes had broken the pride
of the Church; in the desecration of its relics, in the plunder of its
altars, in the confiscation of its treasures, in the insults to its
prelates, the multitude saw the fearful vengeance of an offended
God. The wealth of the ecclesiastical order had disappeared, and
with it much of its power. Its congregations were scattered.
Whenever the poverty of the devout was so great that the regular
tribute could not be raised all worship was proscribed. In those
localities where the indulgence of the conqueror permitted the
Christian rites, there was small inducement to proselytism, as no
new churches could be erected, and the conversion of a
Mohammedan was a capital crime, of which both tempter and
apostate were equally guilty. In the face of the overwhelming
catastrophe which had overtaken the Church, it is but natural that
the eyes of its ministers should be turned towards the throne of the
Holy Father, whose admonitions they had unheeded and whose
commands they had defied. In a crowd of ignorant and superstitious
peasants the prestige attaching to ancient ecclesiastical dignity and
the reverence exacted by its sacred office soon raised the clergy to
an unusual degree of prominence. It was their influence which
actually founded the infant state; which dictated its policy; which
directed its career; which profited by its success; which tendered
sympathy in the hour of adversity; which shared its glory in the hour
of triumph. And, as in the beginning it was predominant, so through
the long course of ages its grasp never slackened, and to its
suggestions, sometimes prompted by wisdom, but often darkened
by bigotry, are to be attributed the measures emanating from both
the civil and ecclesiastical polity of the dynasties of Spain.
The mingling of various nationalities in the Asturias produced its
inevitable ethnical result, the evolution of a race superior to each of
its constituents. But with physical improvement and mental culture
came many deplorable evils, merciless hatred, superstitious credulity,
military insubordination, and the vices of a society indulgent to the
maxims and practice of a lax morality. The remorseless butchery of
infidels was encouraged as highly meritorious, and only a proper
return for the calamities produced by invasion. The ferocious
soldiery, whose license during the continuance of hostilities was
never restrained by their commanders, were, as might be expected,
not amenable to discipline or obedient to the necessary regulations
of their profession in time of peace. The orders of the King were
sometimes openly disobeyed; and such was the precarious nature of
his authority that he not infrequently considered it more expedient
to dissemble than to punish. The licentious habits of the Visigothic
prelates and nobles had been carried, along with the traditions of
their ancient grandeur and the mementos of their former wealth,
into the rude, but hitherto comparatively pure, society of the
mountains. The severity of the climate, the incessant and violent
exercise demanded by their avocations, and the uncertainty of
subsistence had preserved the chastity of the Asturian peasantry,
who, in many other respects, were remarkable for degradation and
brutality. Polygamous unions, practised with more or less
concealment by the privileged classes during the reign of Pelayus,
upon the accession of Alfonso became open and notorious. The
innumerable captives secured by marauding expeditions afforded
excellent facilities for supplying or replenishing the harems of the
nobles and the clergy. The holy fathers, like their predecessors under
Witiza and Roderick, were noted for their taste and appreciation of
the charms of female loveliness; and the owner of a beautiful slave
whose price was too high for the count was rarely dismissed, for this
cause, by the bishop. A well-appointed seraglio was an indispensable
appendage to the household of every secular and ecclesiastical
dignitary. The example of their ancestors, and the temptations
offered by the fascinations of the beautiful Moorish captives, were
too powerful to be withstood. To the allurements of passion was also
added the gratification resulting from the consciousness of inflicted
and well-deserved retribution. The fairest of the Gothic and Roman
maidens had been torn from weeping parents to fill the harems of
Cordova, Cairo, and Damascus. Alfonso I., whose title, The Catholic,
has been confirmed by the profuse and fulsome eulogies of the
Church, was behind none of his ghostly counsellors in his
polygamous inclinations; and the offspring of a connection with an
infidel concubine, who received the name of Mauregato, was
destined to play an important part in the annals of the Reconquest.
In every form and manifestation of social life the influence of the
surviving elements of the Visigothic monarchy produced important
and permanent results. To anarchy succeeded political organization,
imperfect it is true, but the wisdom of whose principles was
repeatedly confirmed by their adaptability to the requirements of an
extensive empire. The physical condition of the people was
improved, and their strength, hitherto employed against each other,
was now directed to the injury of a common enemy. With new
aspirations and altered manners were introduced changes in the
Asturian dialect, which was originally derived from the Euskarian, the
idiom of the Basques. The intercourse of the various classes of
society grew more refined. Law gradually supplanted government by
force. Religion again exerted its beneficent and powerful sway. The
ceremonial of the Visigothic court—a mixture of barbarian insolence,
Roman dignity, and Byzantine pomp—was revived, and a faint image
of ancient greatness was exhibited by the pride and prowess of
representatives of noble families who, mindful of former ascendency
and confident of future distinction, gallantly rallied round the throne.
The spirit of hero-worship, as may readily be inferred from the
superstitious credulity of the mountaineers, was strong in the
Asturias. Every action of the early princes is distorted by the
atmosphere of mystery and exaggeration which envelops it. The idea
pervading classic mythology that those whom tradition declares to
have been the benefactors of mankind, who have contributed to
civilization the greatest practical benefits, and from whose efforts
have been derived the true enjoyments of life, are entitled, if not to
absolute apotheosis, at least to exaltation as demigods, perverted by
sacerdotal influence, had been bequeathed, with other Pagan beliefs
and practices, by the priests of Hercules and Æsculapius to the
servants of the Pope. When canonization was deemed impolitic, the
life of an eminent personage was embellished with a mass of fiction,
of prodigy, of fable. Some historians have not mentioned the name
of Pelayus; others, on account of the untrustworthy character of the
authorities, have assigned all the exploits of his reign to the domain
of the mythical. A miraculous appearance of the Virgin in the cave of
Covadonga inspired the Christians with hope, and announced the
coming victory. A choir of angels, whose voices were distinctly heard
by the attendants, soothed the dying moments of Alfonso. Such
legends, invented by priestly artifice and propagated by universal
approbation in an age of ignorance, have no small influence in
developing the character of a nation.
Thus, in a secluded corner of the Peninsula, neglected by their
friends and despised by their enemies, the founders of an empire
whose states and principalities were to be lighted by the rising as
well as by the setting sun erected in obscurity and distress the
humble fabric of their political fortunes. The almost hopeless
prospect of the struggle at its inception nerved them to despair.
Aided by the obstacles interposed by nature for their defence,
encouraged by the suicidal conflicts which constantly harassed the
emirate, and inspired with an unshaken confidence in the protection
of heaven, an insignificant band of exiles, in the short space of a
quarter of a century, insensibly expanded into a people whose
existence, hitherto ignored, began, when too late, to arouse the
serious apprehensions of the court of Cordova. The Asturian
element, as jealous of liberty as the Basques but far less intolerant,
infused into the public deliberations those principles of freedom
subsequently so prominent in the laws of the northern provinces;
and even now, after centuries of despotism, not entirely eradicated
from the Spanish constitution. It is one of the strangest of political
phenomena that from such a source should have proceeded
institutions that made the Inquisition possible. The imperceptible but
lasting influence of the Asturians did not pass away with the prestige
of the great princes of the Houses of Austria and Bourbon. The
religion of the national hierarchy, organized within its borders and
promulgated by its armies, still affords consolation to the devout of
many lands, and the musical language, formed by a fusion of
barbarous dialects, is the idiom of one-sixth of the geographical area
of the habitable globe.
 CHAPTER VIII
THE OMMEYADES; REIGN OF ABD-AL-RAHMAN I.

756–788
The Ommeyade Family—Its Origin—Its Hostility to Mohammed—The
Syrian Princes—Their Profligacy—Splendors of Damascus—Luxury
of the Syrian Capital—Rise of the Abbasides—Proscription of the
Defeated Faction—Escape of Abd-al-Rahman—His Romantic
Career—He enters Spain—His Success—Defeat and
Dethronement of Yusuf—Constant Insurrections—Enterprise of
the Khalif of Bagdad—Its Disastrous Termination—Invasion of
Charlemagne—Slaughter of Roncesvalles—Death of Abd-al-
Rahman—His Character—His Services to Civilization—Foundation
of the Great Mosque—The Franks reconquer Septimania.
I now turn to that splendid period wherein was displayed the
glory of the line of the Ommeyades, an epoch forever memorable for
its achievements in science and practical philosophy; forever
illustrious in the history of intellectual progress as well as for the
development of those useful arts which diminish the toil and
increase the happiness of every individual, irrespective of rank,
whose influence and avocations insensibly contribute their share to
the amelioration or degradation of humanity.
Prominent among the nobles of Mecca, equal in pride of lineage
and superior in real power to the Hashemites, to which tribe the
Prophet belonged, was the family of the Ommeyades. Although not
exempt from a well-grounded suspicion of atheism, they were, from
motives of policy, devoted champions of the worship of the Kaaba.
Their idolatrous predilections were disclosed by the significant
names of their chieftains, and especially by that of their founder,
Abd-al-Shams, “The Slave of the Sun.” While the sheiks of the
Hashemites, the hereditary guardians of the Kaaba, enjoyed the
nominal authority of heads of the Koreish, the military talents and
intellectual endowments of the Ommeyades secured for their chiefs
the command of the army, an advantage by no means
counterbalanced by the spiritual influence possessed by their rivals
over the worldly and skeptical population of Mecca. The commerce
of the Holy City, which reaped such substantial benefits from its
position as the centre of Arabian superstition, was largely in the
hands of the Ommeyades. The great caravans, which, at regular
periods, carried on a lucrative traffic with Egypt and Syria, were
placed under the charge of their most distinguished leaders. The
riches amassed by the principal members of the family were
prodigious, and their insolence and cruelty were, in nearly every
instance, in a direct ratio to their wealth and power. Quick to
perceive that their political influence as well as their pecuniary
interests would be seriously imperilled by the spread of Islam, the
Ommeyades early displayed the most unrelenting hostility towards
their countryman Mohammed. They reviled his doctrines. They
scoffed at his pretensions to divine inspiration. His proselytes were
followed by the taunts and insults of the mob of Mecca, instigated
by the dissolute young nobles of the Koreish aristocracy. Long before
he had secured a respectable following, the Prophet, on several
occasions, narrowly escaped the violence of his insidious enemies;
and the Hegira itself, the era from which the magnificent dynasties
of Syria and Spain were to date the acts of their sovereigns, was
necessitated by the discovery of a murderous plot against him
hatched and matured by the chiefs of the Ommeyades.
In the defeat of Ohod, where the Prophet was wounded and
nearly lost his life; at the siege of Medina, which menaced with
destruction the existence of the new religion, the hostile armies
were commanded by Abu-Sofian, the principal sheik of this powerful
family. His wife, the termagant Hind, prompted by the impulses of a
savage and a cannibal, had torn out and partly devoured the liver of
Hamza, Mohammed’s uncle, and had worn a necklace and bracelets
of the ears of Moslems who had fallen bravely in battle. After the
surrender of Mecca, Abu-Sofian and his partisans were induced to
show a pretended conformity with the observances of the detested
faith, but only under the threat of instant death.
 The Syrian princes, despite their services to literature and art,
were, almost without exception, profligates and infidels. Ever famous
for voluptuousness and frivolity, they had inherited and improved
upon the seductive dissipations of the Roman Empire. In the
ingenious invention and development of depraved tastes and acts of
unspeakable infamy, Antioch and Damascus stood unrivalled. The
use of wine, prohibited by the Koran, was universal; the debauchery
of the court, which rivalled that of the worst period of imperial
degradation, excited the wonder and disgust of foreigners. The
ministers of the most revolting vices, unmolested, defiled with their
presence alike the halls of the palace and the precincts of the
mosque. The drunkenness of the Khalif not infrequently required the
constant attendance of slaves, even in the audience chamber. Vast
sums were lavished upon singing and dancing boys painted and
attired like women, an abomination in the eyes of every
conscientious Mussulman. Female musicians and performers, whose
attractions often obtained over the susceptible monarch a dangerous
and permanent ascendency, were imported at great expense from
Mecca, the focus of the religion and the vice of Asia. A spirit of
boundless extravagance was cultivated as a necessary attribute of
regal splendor, and a timely jest or a ribald song often procured for
an unworthy favorite a reward equal to the revenue of a province.
Damascus, under the rule of the Ommeyades, presented a picture
of licentiousness and luxury unequalled, before or since, by that or
any other community of the Moslem world. The importance of its
commerce, the opulence of its citizens, the beauty of its suburbs,
the sanctity of its traditions, and the prestige of its name gained for
the most venerable city of antiquity the admiration and the
reverence of every traveller. Its temples were embellished with all
the magnificent creations of Oriental art. Its palaces were encrusted
with porphyry, verde-antique, lapis lazuli, and alabaster. Through its
gardens, over whose mosaic walks waved in stately majesty the
palm, and where the air was perfumed with the fragrance of a
thousand flowers and aromatic shrubs, flowed rivulets of the purest
water. In every court-yard were fountains, and in the harems of the
wealthy they were often fed with costly wines. The most gaudy
attire was affected even by the populace, and no material but silk
was considered worthy of the dignity of a Syrian noble. In the shops
of the bazaar, divided as are those of the East to-day into sections
appropriated to different wares, were to be found objects of
commerce of every country from Hindustan to Britain. The various
nationalities which composed the population of the city were each
distinguished by a peculiar costume, and the brilliant and
picturesque aspect of the living streams which poured unceasingly
through the streets was enhanced by the multitudes of visitors
whom business or curiosity had attracted to the capital of the
khalifate.
With the occupation of the city by the Moslems, its physical
aspect, the character of its population, and the nature of its political
institutions had changed with its religion. From Græco-Syrian,
affected to some extent by Persian influence, it became thoroughly
Arab. The apparently ineradicable ideas of personal liberty
entertained by the Bedouin, inconsistent even with the salutary
restraints necessary for the maintenance of government and the
preservation of society, were carried from the boundless Desert into
the circumscribed area of the Syrian metropolis. Every tribe had its
own municipal district or ward, separated from the others by walls
fortified by towers, and closed at sunset by massive gates. So
perfect was this isolation that each quarter exhibited the picture of a
miniature town, independent of the others, with its markets,
caravansaries, mosques, and cemeteries. The rule of separation was
carried still farther in these communities by assigning different wards
to Jews and Christians, a practice still to be observed in the cities of
the Orient. Unobstructed communication with the surrounding
country was obtained by means of gateways in the principal wall, of
which each quarter always possessed one and sometimes more. This
singular arrangement, a constant protest against the centralized
despotism which, despite its professions, is the governing principle
of Islam, greatly facilitated the political disturbances and
insurrections whose prevalence is so marked a feature in the history
of Damascus.
The Great Mosque, inferior in sanctity only to the temples of
Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem, stood in the very centre of the city.
The plan and decorations of the structure were Byzantine, and still
bear no inconsiderable resemblance to those of the Cathedral of St.
Mark at Venice. In such profusion were mosaics lavished upon its
walls that even the exterior blazed with the intolerable brilliancy of
this elegant ornamentation. Its imposing dome and slender
minarets, rising above a maze of houses and gardens, were the first
objects which met the expectant glance of the camel-driver as he
urged his weary beast over the drifting sands of the Desert. At the
fountain of its spacious court the pilgrim from Yemen and the
merchant from Irac, side by side, performed the lustrations enjoined
upon the true believer. Before its gorgeous Kiblah the curious of
every clime, the devout of every rank, the prince and the beggar, the
noble and the dervish, the master and the slave, in fraternal concord
implored the protection and the blessing of God.
The splendors of the Orient were reflected by the court and the
palace of the khalifate. The quarries of Europe, Africa, and Asia were
ransacked for the rarest marbles. Temples of Pagan deities were
stripped of frieze and capital carved by the hands of famous
sculptors of antiquity. Byzantine mosaics glittered upon the floors
and walls with a sheen that resembled folds of satin drapery and
cloth of gold. The tapestries of Persia, whose designs ignored the
injunction of the Koran prohibiting the representation of forms of
animal life, were suspended, in gorgeous magnificence, from portals
of verde-antique and arcades of Numidian marble and polished
jasper. The gilded ceilings were of odoriferous woods curiously inlaid
in bewildering arabesques with ivory, mother-of-pearl, ebony, and
tortoise-shell. The profusion of water recalled the partiality of the
Arab for the precious fluid associated with the toilsome march of the
caravan, with the repose of the camp, with the refreshing coolness
of the verdant oasis, with the triumph of the foray, with many a
happy memory and sacred tradition of the Desert. In every court-
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