ibn Alaftas Almudafar, King of
Algarve, to Alfonso VI., in 1086, occur the words:--"Do thou remember
the time of Mohammed Almanzor, and bring to thy mind those treaties
wherein thy forefathers offered him the homage even of their own
daughters, and sent him those damsels in tribute even to the land of our
rule."

[1] Al Makkari, ii. 15, 22, and De Gayangos' note, p. 454.

[2] Conde, i. 364.

[3] Dozy, iii. 124.

[4] Koran, v. 5:--"Ye are allowed to marry free women of those
that have received the Scriptures before you."

[5] Dunham, ii. 131: Romey's "Histoire d'Espagne," iii. 276.

[6] Conde, ii. 238: Al Makkari, ii. 256, calls him Omar ibn
Mohammed etc ibn Alafthas Almutawakkel, King of Badajos.

The maiden tribute is the subject of several ancient
ballads by the Christian Spaniards. The following are
two verses from one of these:--

"For he who gives the Moorish king a hundred maids of Spain
Each year when in the season the day comes round again;
If he be not a heathen he swells the heathen's train--
'Twere better burn a kingdom than suffer such disdain!

"If the Moslems must have tribute, make men your tribute-money,
Send idle drones to tease them within their hives of honey;
For, when 'tis paid with maidens, from every maid there spring
Some five or six strong soldiers to serve the Moorish king."[1]

Southey also says that the only old Portuguese ballad known to him was
on this subject. The evidence, then, of the ballads is strong for a fact
of this kind, telling, too, as it does, so much against the writers of
the ballads.[2]

As to the Christian chroniclers, it is quite true that we find no
mention of this tribute in the history of Sebastian of Salamanca and the
Chronicle of Albeldum, but there is a direct allusion to it in a
document included in the collection of Florez.[3] "Our ancestors," says
Ramiro, "the kings of the land--we blush to record it--to free
themselves from the raids of the Saracens, consented to pay them yearly
a shameful tribute of a hundred maidens distinguished for their beauty,
fifty of noble birth, and fifty from the people." It was to put an end
to this nefarious tribute that Ramiro now ordered a levy _en masse_.
This, if the document is genuine (and Florez gives no hint to the
contrary), is good evidence for the fact. Many succeeding writers
mention it. Lucas of Tuy[4] says that Ramiro was asked for the tribute
in 842. Johannes