arose among them, as among the warlike Britons of our own island; no Viriathus even, as in the struggle for independence against the Roman Commonwealth. Mariana, the Spanish historian, asserts that they preferred the rule of the barbarians. However this may be, the various tribes that invaded the country found no serious opposition among the Spaniards: the only fighting was between themselves—for the spoil. Many years of warfare were necessary to decide this important question of supremacy. Fortunately for Spain, the Vandals, who seem to have been the fiercest horde and under the ablest leader, rapidly forced their way southward, and, passing on to fresh conquests, crossed the Straits of Gibraltar in 429: not, however, before they had utterly overthrown their rivals, the Suevi, on the river Baetis, and had left an abiding record of their brief stay in the name Andalusia.

For a time it seemed likely that the Suevi, in spite of their late crushing defeat, would subject to themselves the whole of Spain, but under Theodoric II. and Euric, the Visigoths definitely asserted their superiority. Under the latter king the Gothic domination in Spain may be said to have begun about ten years before the fall of the Western Empire. But the Goths were as yet by no means in possession of the whole of Spain. A large part of the south was held by imperialist troops; for, though the Western Empire had been extinguished in 476, the Eastern emperor had succeeded by inheritance to all the outlying provinces, which had even nominally belonged to his rival in the West. Among these was some portion of Spain.

It was not till 570, the year in which Mohammed was born, that a king came to the Gothic throne strong enough to crush the Suevi and to reduce the imperialist garrisons in the South; and it was not till 622, the very year of the Flight from Mecca, that a Gothic king, Swintila, finally drove out all the Emperor's troops, and became king in reality of all Spain.

Scarcely had this been well done, when we perceive the first indications of the advent of a far more terrible foe, the rumours of whose irresistible prowess had marched before them. The dread, which the Arabs aroused even in distant Spain as early as a century after the birth of Mohammed, may be appreciated from the despairing lines of Julian,[1] bishop of Toledo:—

"Hei mihi! quam timeo, ne nos malus implicet error,
Demur et infandis gentibus opprobrio!
Africa plena viris bellacibus arma minatur,
Inque dies victrix gens Agarena furit."

Before giving an account of the Saracen invasion and its results, it will be well to take a brief retrospect of the condition of Christianity in Spain under the Gothic domination, and previous to the advent of the Moslems.

There can be no doubt that Christianity was brought very early into Spain by the preaching, as is supposed, of St Paul himself, who is said to have made a missionary journey through Andalusia, Valencia, and Aragon. On the other hand, there are no grounds whatever for supposing that James, the brother of John, ever set foot in Spain. The "invention" of his remains at Ira Flavia in the 9th century, together with the story framed to account for their presence in a remote corner of Spain so far from the scene of the Apostle's martyrdom, is a fable too childish to need refutation.

The honour of first hearing the Gospel message has been claimed (but, it seems, against probability) for Illiberis.[1] However that may be, the early establishment of Christianity in Spain is attested by Irenæus, who appeals to the Spanish Church as retaining the primitive doctrine.[2] The long roll of Spanish martyrs begins in the persecution of Domitian (95 A.D.) with the name of Eugenius, bishop of Toledo. In most of the succeeding persecutions Spain furnished her full quota of martyrs, but she suffered most under Diocletian (303). It was in this emperor's reign that nearly all the inhabitants of Cæsar Augusta were treacherously slaughtered on the sole ground of their being Christians; thus earning for their native city from the Christian poet Prudentius,[3] the proud title of "patria sanctorum martyrum."

The persecution of Diocletian, though the fiercest, was at the same time the last, which afflicted the Church under the Roman Empire. Diocletian indeed proclaimed that he had blotted out the very name of Christian and abolished their hateful superstition. This even to the Romans must have seemed an empty boast, and the result of Diocletian's efforts only proved the truth of the old maxim—"the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church."

The Spanish Christians about this time[1] held the first ecclesiastical council whose acts have come down to us. This Council of Illiberis, or Elvira, was composed of nineteen bishops and thirty-six presbyters, who passed eighty canons.

The imperial edict of toleration was issued in 313, and in 325 was held the first General Council of the Church under the presidency of the emperor, Constantine, himself an avowed Christian. Within a quarter of a century of the time when Diocletian had boasted that he had extirpated the Christian name, it has been computed that nearly one half of the inhabitants