and persuaded the queen to issue a decree offering the Moslems the choice of baptism or exile. To hasten their conversion still further he closed their mosques and burnt countless manuscripts which contained the results of Moslem study and learning. conver Christi As a result of the pressure exerted upon the Moslems Nominal a large number became nominal Christians, but their sions to compulsory conversion caused them to hate every- anity. thing connected with the Christian religion. They would wash off the water with which their children had been baptized and after a Christian wedding they returned to their homes to be married again with Moslem rites. In 1567 Philip II endeavoured to compel them to speak the Spanish language, to re-name themselves by Spanish names and to adopt Spanish dress. Soon afterwards a rebellion broke out which lasted for two years, and was repressed with barbarous cruelty. In 1570, when the Moslems were finally Final subjugation subdued, the survivors were either sold as slaves or of the exiled, the deportation of the last remnant taking place in 1610. To quote again the words of Lane Poole: "The (Spanish) Grand Commander Requesens by an organized system of wholesale butchery and devastation, by burning down villages, and smoking the people to death in the caves where they had sought refuge, extinguished the last spark of open revolt before November 5, 1570. The Moriscos were at last subdued at the cost of the honour, and with the loss of the future, of Christian Spain. The Moors were banished; for a while Christian Spain shone, like the moon, with a borrowed light; then came Moslems, 1570. A suggestive legend. Pope Damasus. Theodosius I. the eclipse, and in that darkness Spain has grovelled ever since." 1 As we study the religious and political history of Spain we are constrained to recognize the large measure of truth contained in the old Spanish legend, according to which, on the occasion of the creation of the world, Spain asked and obtained four boons from its Creator a lovely climate, a beautiful sea, a fertile land, and beautiful women. A fifth request, viz. that she might obtain a good government, was refused by the Creator, who said that if it were granted Spain would become a terrestrial paradise. "It was not only a good government," writes a modern historian, “that was refused, but men capable of being governed.” 2 Before we pass from the story of the spread of Christianity in Spain a brief reference should be made to two Spaniards who exerted a considerable influence upon the development of the Christian Church in the West,-Pope Damasus and the Emperor Theodosius I. After a fierce strife and the massacre of a large number of his opponents, Damasus was elected Pope in 366. His term of office was characterized by a great increase in monasticism which he did much to promote, and by the production of the Latin Bible translated by Jerome, which became the recognized Bible of the Western Church. Theodosius I was born at Cauca in Spain in 346, and in 379 was appointed co-emperor with Gratian. In the following year he was baptized by Bishop Ascolius at Thessalonica. The severity with which The Moors in Spain, pp. 278, 280. 2 L'Espagne chrétienne, Leclercq, p. xxiii. f. he persecuted all Christians whom he learned to regard as unorthodox was characteristically Spanish. The massacre of the inhabitants of Thessalonica which he authorized brought upon him the well-known rebuke of Ambrose. He died in 395. CHAPTER X AUSTRIA Pannonia. DURING the early centuries of the Christian era, the greater part of Austria and a portion of Hungary were included in the provinces of Pannonia and Noricum. PANNONIA Limits of The name Pannonia was applied to the country bounded on the north and east by the Danube, from a point 10 miles north of Vienna to Belgrade in Mosia, being coterminous on the west with Noricum and Italy, and on the south with Dalmatia and Moesia Superior. It included the south-west of Hungary with parts of Lower Austria, Styria, Carniola, Croatia, and Slavonia. Bishop Domnus, 325. Other bishops in A Pannonian bishop named Domnus, the site of whose see is unknown, was present at the Council of Nicæa (325), and at the dedication of the Christian church in Jerusalem (335) Eusebius says that the Mosians and Pannonians were represented by "the fairest bloom of God's youthful stock among them." 1 References occur to the existence of Christian comPannonia. munities at Sirmium, Cibalis, Siscia, Singidunum (on the border of Dacia), Scarabantia and Sabaria.2 1 τὰ παρ' αὐτοῖς ἀνθοῦντα κάλλη τῆς τοῦ Θεοῦ νεολαίας. Vita Constantini, iv. 43. 2 See Ruinart, Mart. Syn. pp. 432, 433, 521, 435, 523. |