



HISTORIC SKETCHES \\XVIL 



:s IN EUKOl-K. 



IT WM a in HMUO that w:n d. i ! ! on th<- Lint day 



of that .*',. MI days' liattli- brtwr.'n tin- S.u.ic, mo host mid tho 

 .vnuy i-f Kurop.'Hii Christians undur t'harliM tii.- Ham 

 'ulli'd from tin' way in whidi hn smote tin- i-iu-my on thin occa- 

 sion), whioh wits fought on thn hanks .if tin- l.oip-, at 

 now .-lands tii'- I'Hy of Tours, on October 1" 



nvilly wiii whether or uot the domi- 

 nion of tin' Saraoenn, who had already conquered so far and 

 so thoroughly, should be extended to northern and western 

 Kurop,-, and whi'th.-r Christianity should bo subverted by the 

 religion <>f Muuoinet, whose intolerant disciples and zealous 

 nroselytisera the Arabian Saracens were. To tho < i 



i or tiir Koran |" There is but one God, and M.ihom.-t 

 is tlm prophet of God !" cries whioh were the knell of hundreds 

 of thousands of Christians the Saracens burst from their desert 

 home in Arabia, and swept in one strong tide of conquest 

 through northern Africa, western Asia, and eastern Europe, till 

 tin y |>;n! fd on the Morocco shoves of tho Mediterranean Sea. 

 They looked northward ; they were full of energy and restlessness, 

 and they thought to gratify their ambition and to spread the 

 religion of their prophet by further conquests on the continent 

 of Europe. While in this frame of mind a renegade Christian 

 knight, Count Julian, displeased with the treatment he hod 

 received from his master, tho Gothic Kin},' of Spain, invited the 

 strangers to invade his master's kingdom. Under the conduct 

 of Tank (whoae name is preserved in that of the rock of Gib- 

 raltar, called by the Saracens Gibei-at-Tewifc), a resolute band 

 crossed tho straits, landed in Spain, and, assisted by reinforce- 

 ments of their countrymen, conquered the country, and reduced 

 the Christians to a condition of dependence, if not of slavery. As 

 aoon as they had settled their new gain into something like order, 

 they looked round for fresh conquests, and marching across the 

 Pyrenees, pushed on as far as the Loire, overcoming the very slight 

 resistance that was opposed to them. Their plans included the 

 conquest of France, Italy, and Germany, the seizure and dis- 

 memberment of tho Greek empire being reserved as a sort of 

 bonne-bonche for the last. The effect of this would have been, 

 in all human probability, to drive Christianity into tho cold 

 regions of tho extreme north, where the remnants left of the 

 European nations would have found a home, secure by virtue 

 of its climate, from the attacks of the cold-dreading sons of 

 Arabia. There seems, however, to be a rule of nature that the 

 south shall not prevail over the north, but contrariwise, that 

 in the long run the north shall be master. So it proved at the 

 battle of Tonrs in 732. Though the accounts we have of the 

 oattle, and of the circumstances attendant upon it, are chiefly 

 from Christian writers, whoso record bears upon the face of it 

 strong marks of exaggeration, especially in point of numbers, 

 the Saracen host being computed at near half a million of men, 

 we may yet gather that the contending hosts were vast, consider- 

 ing tho populations which furnished them, and also we may 

 believe that the Christians were in the minority. For seven 

 days the fight lasted ; scarcely was night allowed to break the 

 continuance of the fray ; tho cross and the crescent struggled 

 for the mastery, and the iron-clad warriors of the Church struck 

 hard and thrust deep against the lighter-armed Moslems, whose 

 skill and bravery had brought so many nationalities to their 

 feet. May we not join with the valiant and pious men who, having 

 fought and conquered with Charles the Hammer, ascribed the 

 victory, not to the strength of their own arms of flesh, but to 

 the mercy of the Lord, who fought on his people's side ? 



Some accounts have it that 300,000 of the Saracens were 

 slain, an almost incredible statement when we consider the 

 gunpowderless weapons with which all the butchery must 

 have been done ; but however that may be, the Saracens were 

 routed with such tremendous loss that they never afterwards 

 attempted an invasion of France. Their shattered army re- 

 crossed the mountains, and sought in the quiet of its Spanish 

 provinces to bo healed of the wounds which " so bloodily did 

 yawn upon its face." Charlemagne, grandson of tho Ham- 

 mer, recovered from the Saracens a large portion even of their 

 Spanish territory, and established a military colony in the 

 acquired districts to serve as a bulwark to Christendom against 

 further encroachments from the south. 



But who were the Saracens, and whence came they ? The 



answer involve* omo mention of the origin of th- 



Al.out the year of ,,0v there WM born at 



M.-o-a on.- Mah.jm.rt, th.j xon of a. < hn-'. ,:.,-,.! .],.,-. ^,1 ]., r 



I Abdullah, who WM an idolater. Mahomet's parent* 



>;n he WM a lad, and from the ago of thirteen till be WM 



nan forty ho WM engaged in trade, having hem instructed 



and brought up by bin unclon, Ah 



till a young man he married Kadgab, a rich widow, old 

 enough to be his mother, and being by the marriage placed in 

 affluence, gave himself to contemplation and to study. Every 

 year he retired to a oavo near Mecca in order to spend a monUi 

 in solitude and prayer, and he announced that during then- 

 periods the angel Gabriel appeared to him and told bun hidden 

 things. Then he related how ho had been taken by the angel 

 into tho presence of God, who had told him he WM to be bis 

 prophet, that prophet which should unite all men un : 

 religion of which the one indivisible God WM head. The Koran, 

 or liook that ought to be read," contained the revelations 

 which the angel Gabriel, as the mouthpiece of the Almighty, 

 was supposed to have made to Mahomet. 



Tho first to believe in Mahomet as the prophet of God was 

 his wife Kadijah, whose example WM followed by several of 

 Mahomet's kinsmen and acquaintance ; but the people were 

 slow to accept him, and tho authorities at Mecca were so scan- 

 dalised at his professions, that after a short time spent in 

 preaching to the people he was forced to fly to Yatreb, now 

 Medina (the city), where he had many disciples. Medina became 

 tho nucleus of the prophet's power, ard thither flocked the dis- 

 contented and the converted to enrol themselves under his 

 banner. Bands of armed men belonging to his sect infested the 

 road to Mecca, hostilities broke out, and Mahomet succeeded, 

 after several encounters in which fortune did not always favour 

 him, in arranging for peace, one of the conditions of which woo 

 his public entry into Mecca in his capacity of prophet. From 

 this time Mahomet became the most powerful prince in Arabia, 

 converts by tho thousand were made to his religion, and h 

 began to turn his thoughts towards spreading his doctrines 

 beyond the limits of his own country. For " the people of the 

 book " that is to say, people who claimed to have had special 

 revelations, as the Jews and the Christians he allowed his 

 followers to have toleration on payment of tribute, but for 

 idolaters of all kinds the message brought by Mahomet con 

 tained only a choice between the alternatives, Death or the 

 Koran. Mahomet, beyond sending a few military missionary 

 expeditions under enthusiastic commanders against some of the 

 southern provinces of the Greek empire, does not appear to have 

 done much more than to acquire for him*elf and his religion a 

 complete supremacy in Arabia. All foreign rule was abolished 

 by him, all other religions systems were forced to yield pre- 

 cedence to his within tho borders of Arabia, and ready to do 

 hid bidding was on army of 100,000 hardy warriors, unener- 

 vatcd by civilisation, and entirely possessed with the belief 

 that it was their duty and their privilege to spread the know- 

 ledge of Mahomet and his teaching. 



On the 8th of June, A.D. 632, the prophet died from tho effects 

 of poison, administered, it is said, by a Jewess who wished to 

 try whether he actually was, as he asserted himself to be, the 

 Messiah that should come into the world. Discord sprang up 

 among tho chiefs upon the question of a successor, but the 

 supremo command over tho faithful was at length accorded to 

 Abubeker, the father of Ayesha, Mahomet's favourite wife. 

 Abubeker crushed by force of arms tue efforts of rivals to 

 depose him, assumed the title of Khaliph, or Vicar, and pro- 

 ceeded forthwith to enlarge the borders of the Saracenic empire. 

 Making wise choice of commanders, chief of whom was the 

 mighty Khaled, "the sword of God," he invaded Syria, Baby- 

 lonia, and the nearest provinces of the Greek empire, and 

 covered the Saracen arms with the laurels of victory. Damascus 

 and Jerusalem were both attacked, and the former, though 

 defended by a numerous garrison, and though the Emperor 

 Horaclius sent an army of 100,000 men to relieve it, was cap- 

 tured on the very day that Abubeker died (A.D. 634). Under 

 Omar, the successor of Abubeker, Persia, Egypt, and Syria fell, 

 Jerusalem itself falling into tho Khaliph's power in the year of 

 our Lord 637. Upon tho spot where Solomon's temple had 

 tood, the great mosque of Omar was built ; the Christians 

 were allowed to retain tin ir churches, and were promised pro- 

 tection in return for tribute, and at first it seemed as if the 



