The soul of Spain / by Havelock Ellis.

  • Havelock Ellis
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The soul of Spain / by Havelock Ellis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    50/446 page 32
    the Moorish invaders was usually made up, as the name indicates, of Berbers from Morocco; so that, notwithstanding the age-long warfare between Spanish Christianity and Moorish Islamism, Spaniards and Moors were yet in blood closely related.1 To this general rule there were two notable exceptions. The Visigoths—a Germanic people of Byzantine civilisation who were not alto- gether typically Teutonic—dominated Spain for several centuries and then more or less melted away into the underlying mixed Iberian stock. Of much earlier occurrence—before the fifth century b.c., according to Jubainville—was the invasion of the Asiatic and mid-European Celts, who are still easy to trace in the Iberian penin- sula, though much mixed with Iberian elements, by their shorter heads. They probably entered from France—where they are still firmly en- trenched among the mountains of Auvergne— and being unable to dislodge the tenacious inhabitants of the Pyrenean heights, were com- 1 The readiness with which so obstinate and pugnacious a race as the Spaniards received the Moslem invaders and made terms with them, in large numbers even embracing Mohammedanism (being then termed Muladies), shows that they regarded them as less alien than their Gothic masters. Even when their Christian subjects retained their religion (and were then termed Mozarabes) the Moors frequently admitted them to high posts, even to the command of Moslem armies. The fanatical spirit only began to appear at the beginning of the twelfth century, and the intimate alliance and mingling of Christian and Moor continued even to the last. (See, e.g., Lea, History of the Inquisition in Spain, vol. i. pp. 52 ct seq.)
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