A great change had been wrought in Europe. The Crusades had opened a channel through which flowed from the East reviving streams of ancient knowledge and culture over the arid waste of mediÆvalism. France and England had awakened from their long mental torpor, Paris was become the center of an intellectual revival. In England, Roger Bacon, in his "Opus Majus," was systematizing all existing knowledge and laying a foundation for a more advanced science and philosophy for the people, who had only recently extorted from their wicked King John the great charter of their liberties.

It was just at this period, when the door had suddenly opened ushering Europe into a new life, that the Christian cause in Spain triumphed; and, excepting in the little kingdom of Granada, the Cross waved from the Pyrenees to the sea. After more than four centuries of steadfast devotion to that object, the descendants of the Visigoth Kings had come once more into their inheritance.

They found it enriched, and clothed with a beauty of which their ancestors could never have dreamed. These Spaniards had learned their lesson of valor in the north, and they had learned it well. Now in the land of the Moor, dwelling in the palaces they had built, and gazing upon masterpieces of Arabic art and architecture which they had left, they were to learn the subtle charm of form and color, and the fascination which music and poetry and beauty and knowledge may lend to life. As they drank from these Moorish fountains the rugged warriors found them very sweet; and they discovered that there were other pleasures in life beside fighting the Moors and nursing memories of the Cid and their vanished heroes.

The territory of Fernando III., King of Castile (1230-52), extended now from the Bay of Biscay to the Guadalquivir. The ancient city of Seville was chosen as his capital. It was a far cry from the "Cave of Covadonga" to the Moorish palace of the "Alcazar," where dwelt the pious descendant of Pelayo! The first act of Fernando III. was to convert the Mosque at Seville into a cathedral, which still stands with its Moorish bell-tower, the beautiful "Giralda." There may also be seen to-day over one of its portals a stuffed crocodile, which was sent alive to King Ferdinand by the Sultan of Egypt. And within the cathedral, in a silver urn with glass sides, the traveler may also gaze to-day upon the remains of this "Saint Ferdinand" clothed in royal robes, and with a crown upon his head.

Spain had begun to lift up her head among the other nations of Europe. To defeat the Crescent was the highest ideal of that chivalric age. Spain, longer than any other nation, had fought the Mahommedan. It had been her sole occupation for four centuries, and now she had vanquished him, and driven him into the mountains of one of her smallest provinces, there to hide from the Spaniards as they had once hidden from the Moors in the North. This was a passport to the honor and respect of other Christian nations. She was Spain "the Catholic"—the loved and favorite child of the Church—and great monarchs in England, France, and Germany bestowed their sons and daughters upon her kings and princes. Poor though she was in purse, and somewhat rude yet in manners, she held up her head high in proud consciousness of her aristocratic lineage, and her unmatched championship of Christianity.

We realize how close had become the tie binding her to other nations when we learn that King Fernando III. was the grandson of Queen Eleanor of England (daughter of Henry II.), and that Louis IX. of France, that other royal saint, was his own cousin; and also that his wife Beatrix, whom he brought with him to Seville, was daughter of Frederick II., Emperor of Germany.

The deep hold which Arabic life and thought had taken upon their conquerors was shown when Alfonso X., son of Ferdinand, came to the throne. So in love was he with learning and science that he let his kingdom fall into utter confusion while he busied himself with a set of astronomical tables upon which his heart was set and in holding up to ridicule the Ptolemaic theory. If he had given less thought to the stars, and more to the humble question as to who was to be his successor, it would have saved much strife and suffering to those who came after him.

While the Moslems were building up their kingdom and making of their capital city a second and even more beautiful Cordova, there was a partial truce with the Moors in Granada. Moors and Christians were enemies still; the hereditary hatreds were only lulled into temporary repose. But Christian knights who were handsome and gallant might love and woo Moorish maidens who were beautiful; and, as a writer has intimated, love became the business and war the pastime of the Spaniard in Andalusia. Spain was unconsciously inbibing the soft, sensuous charm of the civilization she was exterminating; and the peculiar rhythm of Spanish music, and the subtle picturesqueness which makes the Spanish people unique among the other Latin nations of Europe, came, not from her Gothic, nor her Roman, nor her Phenician ancestry, but from the plains of Arabia; and the guitar and the dance and the castanet, and the charm and the coquetry of her women, are echoes from that far-off land of poetry and romance. Not so the bull-fight! Would you trace to its source that pleasant pastime, you must not go to the East; the Oriental was cruel to man, but not to beast. He would have abhorred such a form of amusement, for the origin of which we must look to the barbarous Kelt; or perhaps, as is more probable, to the mysterious Iberians, since among the Latin peoples of Europe bull-fighting is found in Spain alone. Well was it for Spain that her rough, untutored ancestors were kept hiding in the mountains for centuries, while that brilliant Oriental race planted their Peninsula thick with the germs of high thinking and beautiful living.

As the spider, after his glistening habitation has been destroyed by some ruthless footstep, goes patiently to work to rebuild it, so the Moor in Granada, with his imperishable instinct for beauty, was making of his little kingdom the most beautiful spot in Europe. The city of Granada was lovelier than Cordova; its Alhambra more enchanting than had been the palaces in the "City of the Fairest." This citadel, which is fortress and palace in one, still stands like the Acropolis, looking out upon the plain from its lofty elevation. Volumes have been written about its labyrinthine halls and corridors and courts, and the amazing richness of decoration, which still survives—an inexhaustible mine for artists and a shrine for lovers of the beautiful. But Granada cultivated other things besides the art of beauty. Nowhere in Europe was there in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries such advanced thinking, and a knowledge so akin to our own to-day, as within the borders of that Moorish kingdom.