prepared to accompany them into
the midst of the conflict.

Upon the third day, the sixteenth of July, in the year twelve hundred
and twelve, the Christian army was drawn up in battle array. The
troops were formed into three divisions, each commanded by a king.
Alphonso was in the centre, at the head of his Castilians and the
chevaliers of the newly-instituted orders of Saint James and Calatrava;
Rodrique, archbishop of Toledo, the eyewitness and historian of this
great battle, advanced by the side of Alphonso, preceded by a large
cross, the principal ensign of the army; Sancho and his Navarrois
formed the right, while Peter and his subjects occupied the left. The
French crusaders, now reduced to a small number by the desertion of
many of their companions, who had been unable to endure the scorching
heat of the climate, marched in the van of the other troops, under the
command of Arnault, archbishop of Narbonne.

Thus disposed, the Christians descended towards the valley which
separated them from their enemies.

{105}

The Moors, according to their ancient custom, everywhere displayed
their innumerable soldiers, without order or arrangement. An admirable
cavalry, to the number of a hundred thousand men, composed their
principal strength: the rest of their army was made up of a crowd of
ill-armed and imperfectly trained foot-soldiers. Mohammed, stationed
on a height, from which he could command a view of his whole army, was
encompassed by a defence made of chains of iron, guarded by the
choicest of his cavaliers on foot. Standing in the midst of this
enclosure, with the Koran in one hand and an unsheathed sabre in the
other, the Saracen commander was visible to all his troops, of whom the
bravest squadrons occupied the four sides of the hill.

The Castilians directed their first efforts towards this elevation. At
first they drove back the Moors, but, repulsed in their turn, they
recoiled in disorder and began to retreat. Alphonso flew here and
there, attempting to rally their broken ranks, "Archbishop," said he to
the prelate who everywhere accompanied him, preceded by the grand
standard of the Cross, "Archbishop, here are we destined to die!" "Not
{106} so, sire," replied the ecclesiastic; "we are destined here to
live and conquer!" At that moment the brave canon who carried the
chief ensign threw himself with it into the midst of the infidels; the
prelate and the king followed him, and the Castilian sold