Note 27 — GOMES EANNES DE AZURARA; (continued 6)

(p. 17). The people of Fez ... of Bugya.—This Moslem league of 1418 against Portuguese Ceuta comprised nearly all the neighbouring Islamic states (1) Fez—the centre of Moslem culture in Western "Barbary," a very troublesome state, politically, to the great ruling dynasties in N.W. Africa—contained two towns at this time, called respectively the town of the Andalusi, or Spaniards—from the European (Moslem) emigrants who lived there—and the town of the Kairwani, from Kairwan ("Cairoan"), the holy city of Tunis. The founder of the greatness of Fez was Idris, whose dynasty reigned there a.d. 788-985. It was captured by Abd-el-Mumen ben Ali, the Almohade, in 1145. It was also besieged in 960, 979, 1045, 1048, 1069, 1248, 1250. See Leo Africanus (Hakluyt Soc. ed.), pp. 143-5, 393, 416-486, 589-606. (2) Granada was still a Moslem Kingdom, as it remained till its capture by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. It was now (1418) ruled by the successors of Mohammed-al-Hamar, who in 1236 gathered the relics of the western Caliphate into the Kingdom of Granada. In 1340 the Granadine attempt, in alliance with Berber help from Africa, to recover southern Spain for Islam, had been defeated in the great battle of the Tarifa, or Salado (one of the first engagements where cannon were used); but Granada still (in the fifteenth century) retained considerable strength. (3) Tunis.—Leo Africanus mentions its capture by Okba (Akbah) in the seventh century a.d., by the Almoravides in the eleventh century, and by Abd-el Mumen ben Ali, the Almohade, in the twelfth century. It was unsuccessfully attacked at times by those states whose trade with it was most important, e.g., by Louis IX of France in his crusade of 1270; by the Genoese, 1388-90; by the Kings of Sicily, 1289-1335; and by other foreign states; but remained for the most part independent, from the breakup of the Almohade empire till its capture by Barbarossa for the Ottomans in 1531. See Leo Africanus, pp. 699, 716, 753. (4) Marocco.—The city of Marocco was founded, a.d. 1070-2 according to some, 1062-3 according to others (a.h. 454), by Yusuf Ibn Tashfin, the Almoravide. Under both Almoravides and Almohades its greatness steadily increased. Abd-el-Mumen ben Ali took it for the latter, and under his grandson, Yakub Almansor, it became the Almohade capital (a.d. 1189-90). The Beni-Merini succeeding to power in these parts in the thirteenth century, removed the seat of government to Fez (1269-1470). See Leo Africanus, pp. 262-272, 351-359. Early in the sixteenth century the Portuguese, under Nuno Fernandez d'Ataide, Governor of Safi, attacked Marocco without success. A district called Marocco was much older than the city. "Marakiyah," in Masudi (iii, p. 241, Meynard and Courteille), is used of a district to which the Berbers emigrated. (5) Bugia, Bougie, anciently also Bujaïa and Bejaïa, a very ancient city. Carthage had a settlement here; Augustus established a Roman colony with the title of Colonia Julia Augusta Saldantum ("Saldaa"). It fell into the power of the Vandals in the fifth, of the Arabs in the sixth, century; and during the earlier Caliphate it carried on a considerable trade, especially with the Christian states of the Western Mediterranean. This trade continued to flourish during the later Middle Ages; and we may instance, not only the favourable descriptions of Edrisi (c. 1154) and of Leo Africanus (1494-1552), but also the Pisan commerce (of about 1250-64) both in merchandise and in learning, with this city, as well as the Aragonese treaties of 1309 and 1314, and the Pisan embassy of 1378, as a few examples out of many. In 1068, En-Naser having restored and embellished the town, made it his capital, re-naming it En-Naseria; Abd-el-Mumen ben Ali subjected it to the Almohade empire in 1152; in 1509 Count Peter of Navarre seized it, and the Spaniards held it till 1555. From 1833 it has been a French possession. See Edrisi (Jaubert), vol. i, pp. 202, 236-8, 241, 245-6, 258, 269; Leo Africanus, Hakluyt Soc. edn. pp. 126, 143-4, 699, 700, 745, 932.