Note 201 — Chapter II · THE JEWS AND THE MOORS.

Janer, Condicion Social de los Moriscos de España, pp. 47-9, 161, 162 (Madrid, 1857).

Under the Saracen domination, Almería was the chief port of Spain, crowded with ships from Syria and Egypt, Pisa and Genoa. It boasted of a thousand inns for strangers and four thousand weaving shops, besides manufactures of copper, iron and glass (Dozy, Recherches, I, 244-5). For the wonderful wealth of the Moors under the caliphs of Córdova, showing the capacity of the race and of the land, see Conde’s “Arabs in Spain,” P. II, cap. 94. How unfitted was the Castilian chivalry to perpetuate this prosperity is seen in a letter of Alfonso X in 1258, reciting how he had peopled with Christians the flourishing city of Alicante, as it was a stronghold and one of the best seaports; how the allotment of lands had given dissatisfaction and on investigation he had found that the Christians could not live and prosper there, wherefore he now makes a new repartimiento (Memorial histórico español, I, 135).