In the tenth century, in 997, the Moor Almanzor, a celebrated minister of the Moorish Court, arrived with his devastating army at the gates of Santiago, having reduced thirty monasteries and palaces to ruin on his way. Troops of Moors had come over from Cordova to join forces with Almanzor’s hosts. San Pedro de Mezonzo, the author of the _Salve Regina_, was then archbishop. When the Moorish army reached Santiago, they found to their surprise that its towers and its walls were deserted, and that no resistance was being offered to their advance. Penetrating into the heart of the city, they found stillness and solitude everywhere; they found the doors of the cathedral open, but there was only one living person inside it--an aged monk prostrate in prayer. “What are you doing here?” demanded Almanzor. “I am praying before the sepulchre of St. James,” replied the monk. “Pray as much as you wish,” replied Almanzor, and he thereupon gave orders that none should molest him; after which, according to some, the Moor stationed himself before the altar to protect it from desecration at the hands of his followers. St. Pedro de Mezonzo had fled to a neighbouring stronghold, bearing with him as much of the treasure of the cathedral as he could manage to carry.[62] It is clear that he at least was not one of the fighting prelates for which Galicia has been famous. Ferreiro tells us that when excavations were made in the cathedral of Santiago in 1878, traces of fire were certainly found. He argues from this that the Moors must have used fire in their attempt to destroy the building. Almanzor returned to Cordova laden with booty, and driving before him four thousand Christian captives, bearing on their shoulders the gates of Santiago Cathedral and its smaller bells, which, according to Fernandez Sandez, served as lamps in the great mosque of Cordova until the day when Ferdinand took the capital of the Calyphate, and caused captive Moors to bear them back to Santiago on their shoulders and restore them to the cathedral. Almanzor’s triumph was merely that of a successful expedition into the heart of Galicia, for the Moors never conquered that province. San Pedro de Mezonzo was a monk of the Benedictine Order before he was raised to the archbishopric. The fact of his having been archbishop of Santiago at the time of Almanzor’s entry is not the only one that contributes to his fame. He is illustrious in the annals of Spanish history as being the supposed author of that beautiful prayer to the Virgin so universally revered throughout Catholic countries, the _Salve Regina_,[63] a prayer which every Catholic child lisps at its mother’s knee, and which has been translated into every language:--