1. To the victor belongs the bride. In the wars which were waged in Spain between Christians and Muslims, the former had often come under the influence of the attractions of Moorish fair ones. Many a Christian knight had celebrated “the nine-days’ religious rite” with a Moorish woman. But besides material wealth and sensual enjoyment, the charm of intellectual culture had also its effect upon the conqueror. And Arab Science thus presented the appearance of a lovely bride to the eyes of many men who felt their want of knowledge. It was the Jews especially who played the part of matchmakers in the transaction. The Jews had participated in all the transformations of Muslim intellectual culture: many of them wrote in Arabic, and others translated Arabic writings into Hebrew; not a few philosophical works by Muslim authors owe their preservation to the latter circumstance. The development of this Jewish study of philosophy culminated in Maimonides (1135–1204), who sought, chiefly under the influence of Farabi and Ibn Sina, to reconcile Aristotle with the Old Testament. In part he expounded the doctrines of philosophy from the text of revelation, and in part he restricted the Aristotelian philosophy to what belongs to this earth, while a knowledge of that which is above it, had to be gained from the Word of God. In the various Muslim States, at the time when they were most flourishing, the Jews had shewn an interest in scientific work, and they had not only been tolerated, but even regarded with favour. Their position, however, was altered, when those States were together overthrown, and when the decline of their civilization ensued. Expelled by fanatical mobs they fled for refuge to Christian lands, and particularly to Southern France, there to fulfil their mission as the disseminators of culture. 2. The Muslim world and the Christian world of the West came into contact at two points,—in Lower Italy and in Spain. At the court of the Emperor Frederick II in Palermo, Arab science was eagerly cultivated and made accessible to Latinists. The Emperor and his son Manfred presented the Universities of Bologna and Paris with translations of philosophical works, partly rendered from the Arabic, and partly direct from the Greek.