44 THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT 



itself had rallied their courage and their forces, 

 and, in a scene of chivalry, which inspired many a 

 tale and song, had freed at least the northern 

 provinces of that country from the alien power. 

 But weapons of war, as we have already seen in 

 the case of the Arabs themselves, are not the only 

 means of conquest. The surest title of the Moors 

 to glory lies in the prevailing intellectual influence 

 they were able to exert over that Christendom 

 which, in a political sense, they had failed to 

 subdue and dispossess. The scene we have just 

 witnessed in the East was now repeated in Spain, 

 but was repeated in an exactly opposite sense. 

 The mental impulse received from the remains of 

 Greek literature at Bagdad now became in its 

 turn the motive power which not only sufficed to 

 carry these forgotten treasures westward in the 

 course of Moorish conquest, but succeeded, through 

 that nation, in rousing the Latin races to a sense of 

 their excellence, and a generous ambition to become 

 possessed of all the culture and discipline they were 

 capable of yielding. 



The chief centre of this influence, as it was the 

 chief scene of contact between the two races, 

 naturally lay in Spain. During the ages of Moorish 

 dominion the Christians of this country had lived 

 in peace and prosperity under the generous pro- 

 tection of their foreign rulers. To a considerable 

 extent indeed the Moors and Spaniards amalga- 

 mated by intermarriage. The language of the 

 conquerors was familiarly employed by their 

 Spanish subjects, and these frequented in numbers 

 the famous schools of science and literature estab- 

 lished by the Moors at Cordova, and in other cities 



