ard
to the late martyrdoms and apostasies, purporting to have been
written in 937.

[5] Dozy, ii. 47.

[6] Alvar, "Ep.," xiii. 3. Samson, "Apol.," ii. cc. ii.-iv.

As was to be expected, Arabic soon began to displace Latin throughout
the country, and even before the ninth century the Scriptures were
translated into the tongue of the conquerors [1] by Odoarius, Bishop of
Accita, and John of Seville. Hischem I. (788-796) forbade the use of any
language but Arabic, so that his Christian subjects had to use Arabic
Gospels;[2] and the Spaniards were soon not even permitted to write in
Latin.[3] Even if this statement be doubtful, we know that Latin came
gradually to be neglected and forgotten. Alvar utters an eloquent
protest against this: "Alas, the Christians are ignorant of their own
tongue, and Latins neglect their language, so that in all the College of
Christ[4] there is scarcely to be found one who can write an address of
welcome to his brother intelligibly in Latin, while numbers can be found
competent to mouth the flowery rhetoric of the Chaldeans."[5] In the
department of poetry--the peculiar boast of the Arabs--the Christians
seem even to have surpassed their masters; and to the rivalry of the two
nations in this art we may attribute the excellence and abundance of
native ballads of which Spain can boast.

We have seen how Eulogius did his best to check this neglect of Latin,
by introducing into Spain some of the masterpieces in that language; but
it is doubtful whether his efforts had much result. We can see from the
remains of the Spanish writers which we possess that the structure of
that language had considerably degenerated in Spain.[6]

[1] Murphy, "Hist. Mahom. Empire in Spain," p. 309.

[2] Yonge, p. 60.

[3] Conde, i. 239.

[4] "Omni Christi collegio."

[5] Alvar, "Ind. Lum.," sec. 35.

[6] See Elipandus and Alvar passim. Alcuin, on the other hand,
writes wonderfully good Latin.

Some sentences are so ungrammatical as to be scarcely intelligible.
Moreover, we find Samson[1] directly accusing Hostegesis, Bishop of
Malaga, of not being able to write Latin; and similarly Jonas of Orleans
(839) accusing Claudius, Bishop of Turin, who was himself a Spaniard, of
the same defect.

The neglect of Latin was accompanied by an increasing indifference to
the doctrinal basis of Christianity, educated Christians being led to
devote their time, which might have