Alfonso’s honour had not gone unstained in regard to his taking the city of his old friend and benefactor, and the Moors must have been sanguine indeed if they looked forward to a scrupulous fulfilment of the pledges given them by the conqueror while he was _outside_ the walls. The clause that entitled the Muslims to the free and exclusive use of their mosques was particularly obnoxious to the rabid ecclesiastics and crusaders who accompanied the king. With increasing irritation they compared the noble proportions of the Mohammedan mezquita with those of the humble provisional Catholic Cathedral of Santa Maria de Alficem. While Alfonso was absent in Leon, he left the city in charge of his queen, Constancia, a Frenchwoman, and of her countryman, Bernard, now bishop, and formerly a monk of Cluny. This prelate took advantage of his sovereign’s absence to burst one night into the coveted mosque with an armed party, and having “purified” it, suspended bells in the minarets, which announced at dawn the celebration of the Christian rite. When word was brought to the King of this infamous violation of the treaty, he set out for Toledo, announcing his intention of burning the bishop alive. Moved either by that magnanimity which in the person of Al Mamûn had contributed to their downfall, or, as Spanish writers say, by a far-seeing prudence, the Moors went out in a body to meet the monarch, and besought him to forgive the highly placed thieves. Alfonso, with a show of reluctance, acquiesced in their prayer, and the Christians were most undeservedly confirmed in the possession of a church they had no hand in creating. The Alfaqui, or headman of the Muslims, was munificently rewarded for his generosity, his statue being placed in the Capilla Mayor of the new cathedral, which was solemnly consecrated in 1087. No nation has shown a very nice sense of honesty in respect of church property, yet it needs no subtle intelligence to perceive that a church is as much the property of the particular sect for whose special use it was designed by members of that sect, as any private house is of its private owner.