fined.
The sheiks of Lamtuna were so many insupportable tyrants; the Jews, the
universal agents for the collection of the revenues, were here, as in
Poland, the most pitiless extortioners; every savage from the desert
looked with contempt on the milder inhabitant of the Peninsula. The
domination of these strangers was indeed so odious that, except for the
divisions between Alfonso and his ambitious queen Donna Urraca, who was
sovereign in her own right, all Andalusia might speedily have been
subjected to Christian rule. Alfonso, the King of Aragon, fell at the
siege of Fraga about A.D. 1109, but the Almoravides met an equally
valiant foe in his son and successor, Alfonso Raymond, King of Leon and
Castile.

After a period of about forty years, during which the Christians were
steadily increasing their dominions, Coria and Mora and other Mahometan
strongholds were acquired by Alfonso, now styled the "Emperor"; and
almost every contest between the two natural enemies had turned to the
advantage of the Christians. So long, indeed, as the walis were eager
only to preserve or to extend their authority, independent of each other
and of every superior, this success need not surprise us--we may rather
be surprised that the Mahometans were allowed to retain any footing in
the Peninsula. Probably they would at this time have been driven from it
but for the seasonable arrival of the victorious Almohades. Both
Christians and Africans now contended for the superiority. While the
troops of Alfonso reduced Baeza, and, with a Mahometan ally, even
Cordova, Malaga, and Seville acknowledged Abu Amram; Calatrava and
Almeria next fell to the Christian Emperor, about the same time that
Lisbon and the neighboring towns received Don Enrique, the new sovereign
of Portugal. Most of these conquests, however, were subsequently
recovered by the Almohades. Being reinforced by a new army from Africa,
the latter pursued their successes with greater vigor. They reduced
Cordova, which was held by an ally of Alfonso; defeated, and forever
paralyzed, the expiring efforts of the Almoravides; and proclaimed their
Emperor Abdelmumen as sovereign of all Mahometan Spain.

Notwithstanding the destructive wars which had prevailed for nearly a
century, neither Moors nor Christians had acquired much advantage by
them. From the reduction of Saragossa to the present time, the victory,
indeed, had generally declared for the Christians; but their conquests,
with the