Note 19 — Chapter II · THE TIME OF MOSLEM DOMINATION

[Compare what the Arab historian Al Lagij said of Alfonso the Catholic: “The terrible Alfonso, the manslayer, son of the sword, killed tens of thousands of Moslems. He burned houses and dwellings, and no treaty could be made with him.” Christian historians equal this. The archbishop Rodrigoc draws a worse view of the desolation of Spain than even Isidored: “Children are dashed on the ground, young men beheaded; their fathers fall in battle; the old men massacred, the women reserved for greater misfortune.” He tells us that “every cathedral in Spain was burned or destroyed”; that “the national substance, etc., was plundered, except what the bishops could save in the Asturias”; that “the cities which were too strong to be stormed immediately, were deluded into a surrender”; that “oaths and treaties were uniformly broken by the Arabs,” etc. Both he and Isidore may exaggerate, but the exaggeration only proves the fact.]