Note 19 — Chapter V · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIANS OF SPAIN.
Reading edition
Except in the case of offences against the Muslim religious law, the Christians were tried by their own judges and in accordance with their own laws.19 They were left undisturbed in the exercise of their religion;20 the sacrifice of the mass was offered, with the swinging of censers, the ringing of the bell, and all the other solemnities of the Catholic ritual; the psalms were chanted in the choir, sermons preached to the people, and the festivals of the Church observed in the usual manner. They do not appear to have been condemned, like their co-religionists in Syria and Egypt, to wear a distinctive dress as sign of their humiliation, and in the ninth century at least, the Christian laity wore the same kind of costume as the Arabs.21 They were at one time even allowed to build new churches.22