216 EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAINpredecessors. Likewise the blandishments and apparent worldly wis-
dom of the Muslim qadis and officials are identical in tone to many
of the arguments put into the mouths of pagan Roman judges and
governors in the earlier passions.
It is apparent in a number of the individual cases, so fully de-
scribed by Eulogius in his various works, that the secrecy forced upon
them by the strict rules against conversion and the problems created
by mixed marriages drove a number of the martyrs into making their
public declarations of faith and repudiation of Islam. But not all of
the instances fall into such a pattern: it looks as if an attempt was
being made by a small group of Christians in Cordoba to turn their
community in the city into a martyr Church, following the pattern set
in the great Diocletianic persecution of 303-312. Their aim was to
halt the slide into Arabicising and into Islam by setting their Church
into violent opposition to the Muslim establishment. The result should
have been a smaller but more assured and self-defined Christian com-
munity, dwelling in but detached from Muslim Al-Andalus.
Limited geographically and in time as the Cordoban martyr move-
ment was, it is probably indicative of major changes taking place
initially in the heart, but soon to spread to most other parts, of
Umayyad Spain. Another symptom of these was the northward migra-
tion into the lands of the Christian states of communities of Mozarabic
monks. The term 'Mozarab' is not unambiguous in its meaning. It
was used for instance by Ibn Sa'id to refer to indigenous Arabicised
Muslims in Spain. However its general and current significance is to
designate those Christians of Al-Andalus who, while retaining their
religion, had adopted a large measure of Arab culture.
References in the extant Latin writings of the mid ninth century
indicate the existence of several Christian monasteries in the country-
side in the vicinity of Cordoba. Some of these may have survived from
Visigothic times, but others, such as Tabanos, were recent founda-
tions, and indeed the religious tensions developing in the city may
have driven many Christians, who, if not willing to seek martyrdom,
at least sought to commit themselves more fully to their religion, into
adopting the monastic life. However from the second half of the
ninth century on, something of a flight of members of religious houses
into Leon and Catalonia can be seen getting under way, which in-
creased in intensity in the tenth century. From the evidence of foun-
dation inscriptions of churches in these regions and from their
charters, the period from c. 910 to c. 940 saw the greatest such activity.79