usade was due to the coming from France and Italy of the
Cluny monks. Foreigners,--like the Romans, the Church, the Visigoths,
and the Moors,--they created a situation which facilitated the union of
the different monarchs, prelates, and noblemen, by showing them a common
cause to fight for. Besides, anxious to establish the supreme power of
the Pope in a land where his authority was a dead letter, they crossed
the Pyrenees and broke the absolute power of the arrogant prelates.

The result was obvious: the Church became uniform throughout the
country, and its influence waxed to the detriment of that of the
noblemen. Once again the kings learnt to rely upon the former, thus
putting an end to the power of the latter. Once more the Church grew to
be an ecclesiastical organization in which the role of the prelates
became more important as time went on.

In short, if the coming of the Moors retarded for nearly six hundred
years the birth of the Spanish nation, this birth was directly brought
about by the political ability of the Cluny monks; the Moors, on the
other hand, exerted a direct and lasting influence on the shaping and
moulding of the future nation.

Christian Spain, at the time of the death of the pious warrior-king San
Fernando, was roughly divided into an eastern and a western half, into
the kingdom of Castile (and Leon) and that of Aragon. The fusion of
these two halves by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabel, two hundred
years later, marks the date of the birth of Spain as a nation.

It is true, nevertheless, that the people had little or no voice in the
arrangement of matters. They were indifferent to what their crowned
rulers were doing, and ignorant of the growing power, wealth, and
learning of the prelates. All they asked for was individual liberty and
permission to pray to the God of their choice. Neither had as yet the
spirit of patriotism burned in their breasts, and they were utterly
insensible to any and all politics which concerned the peninsula as a
unity.

But the Church-state had successfully evolutionized, and Catholic kings
sat on the only available throne. The last Moor had been driven from the
peninsula, the Jews had been expelled from the Catholic kingdom, and the
Inquisition--now that the Church could no longer direct its energy
against the infidel--strengthened the Pope's hold on the land and
increased the importance and magnificence of the prelates themselves.

* * *