The memory of the exploits of the Almoravide generals, and the appearance of a new and victorious enemy in the South, had reconciled the quarrels of the Christian states far more effectually than all the concessions of diplomacy or the exhortations and anathemas of the Church. Envoys from the Italian republics of Venice, Pisa, and Genoa had recently visited the Castilian court and represented to the King the important service he could confer upon Christendom by the suppression of the pirates who, from their stronghold at Almeria, threatened the destruction of commerce on the Mediterranean. The depredations of these adventurous rovers carried terror into every part of Southern Europe. Their vessels swept the coast from Bayonne to Constantinople, defied the combined navies of Italy and the Empire of the East, and had already materially reduced the wealth and disturbed the trade of many populous and important cities. It seems extraordinary that under such circumstances application for relief should have been made to the remote kingdom of Castile. It was separated from Almeria by the entire length of the Spanish Peninsula. Vast tracts of barren lands, provinces swarming with a hostile and warlike population, were interposed between its plains and the tropical coast of Andalusia. A formidable enemy had just established himself in the most fertile districts of the South. The port of Malaga, in close proximity to the destination of the expedition, was in his power. It is true that the republics of Italy, united by a common faith and sympathizers in a common cause, had long been allies of the Christian kingdoms of Northern Spain. But something more than hatred of the Moslem and devotion to the interests of the Church must have impelled Alfonso VII. to undertake an enterprise of certain difficulty and of doubtful success. A foe that had vanquished a dynasty whose armies had repeatedly desolated his kingdom and insulted his capital already menaced his borders. It is highly probable that the Pope, influenced by temporal far more than by spiritual considerations, may have proposed or even dictated the terms of this alliance. It was no unusual thing for the Holy Father, whose vow of poverty, like many other moral obligations, gave him little concern, to share in the profits of commerce. The private revenues of His Holiness, often inadequate to the prodigal expenditures required for the pomp and luxury of the Vatican, could easily be increased by mercantile speculations, and the Moorish corsair in his indiscriminate depredations would certainly not respect the property of the highest dignitary of a hostile faith. The character of Eugenius III. gives color to this hypothesis. His court, under the threadbare cloak of asceticism, was shockingly corrupt. The institution of begging friars, the imposition of frequent penances, the observation of fasts, the performance of pilgrimage, could not conceal from the