A history of all nations from the earliest times; being a universal historical library . accessibility of the Western Pyrenees, had de-fended itself successfully, first against the Arabs, and later againstthe Franks. About the year 1000, in the time of King Sancho theGreat (970-1035), Navarre was the most powerful of the Christianstates of the peninsula. But the partition ordered by Sancho athis death weakened his kingdom; and the leading Christian powershenceforth were Aragon, in the northeast; Castile (^vith Leon)in the north and centre; and, from 1139, the kingdom of Portugalin the west, un
A history of all nations from the earliest times; being a universal historical library . accessibility of the Western Pyrenees, had de-fended itself successfully, first against the Arabs, and later againstthe Franks. About the year 1000, in the time of King Sancho theGreat (970-1035), Navarre was the most powerful of the Christianstates of the peninsula. But the partition ordered by Sancho athis death weakened his kingdom; and the leading Christian powershenceforth were Aragon, in the northeast; Castile (^vith Leon)in the north and centre; and, from 1139, the kingdom of Portugalin the west, under a branch-Une of the Capetians. When the Califate of Cordova came to a close with the abdica-tion of Hashem III. in 1031, and was divided into a numl)er ofpetty Mohammedan states, the Cliristian kingdoms, sometimes unitedinto a great confederation, continued the war against the infidelswith renewed -sdgor. But at the close of the eleventh century theEmir of Seville called on the Almoravides — a fanatical warriorsect who had arisen in North Africa— for help against King Alfonso. toü omt,a(/) c 0G 0 Q ^ ! a THE ALMOBAVIHES AND ALiLOBABES IN SPAIN. 105 VI. of Castile and imposed a checkon tlie career of conquestof the Christians, but,at the same time, madethemselves the lords oftheir jjroteges, on whomthey laid the iron yokeof military the Almoravidesthe conflict between Chris-tians and Mohammedansassumed once more thewildly fanatical characterof a war of faiths, madeall the more bitter by theoutbreak of the contem-porary crusade were evolved onboth sides that had, up tothis time, lain dormant,and which impressed traitson the Spanish characterthat are peculiar to it tothis day. The incarna-tion of chivalric devotionto the faith produced bythis strugfole so full of vi-cissitudes, later centuriescelebrated in Don Rod-rigo Diaz — the Cid Cam-peador — ( Lord Cham-pion ) the hero of theCastilians in their Moor-ish wars at the
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