212 EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAINservice to become a monk. Three years later, in 851, he went down
to the city and persuaded the qadi publicly to expound the tenets
of Islam to him on the pretext that he was considering conversion.
In the middle of the exposition Isaac rounded on his informant
and began to abuse him and his religion. Although the qadi at first
assumed that he was drunk or mad, he was driven into having Isaac
imprisoned and he was subsequently executed on the orders of the
amir.70 This precipitated a series of self-sought martyrdoms that took
place throughout the summer of 851, mostly on the part of monks
and clerics, but also involving a Basque soldier in the amir's guard
called Sancho, who was one of Eulogius's pupils.
Not surprisingly such deliberate conflict provoked Muslim anger,
and the amir Mul].ammad I is reported to have considered imposing
forcible conversion, but it also produced much disquiet in more
moderate Christian circles. The validity of self-sought martyrdom
became a matter of urgent debate, and the Church hierarchy led by
Bishop Reccafred of Seville condemned the movement, possibly
through a council held in Cordoba in 852. Eulogius was briefly im-
prisoned by the bishop. In response both Eulogius and Alvar wrote
works in justification and defence of the martyrs and their actions.
The former produced his Memoriale in three parts, in the years 851
and 853, which was largely an account of the passions of the individual
confessors, to which in 857 he added a sequel in the form of his
Apologeticus Martyrum, whilst Alvar's Indiculus Luminosus of 852 and
854 was cast more as a general apologetic of the principles upon
which the movement was based.
Although they could not claim that the Muslims persecuted the
Church with violence in the way that the pagans had in the third and
early fourth centuries, they did regard the destruction of churches, in
implementation by Mul].ammad I of the ban on new Christian build-
ings, the discriminatory taxes, to which as non-Muslims they were
subjected, and the low social role accorded to their priests by the
constitution of society, as sufficient 'molestation' to justifY the martyrs'
deeds, and they also cited the examples of earlier voluntary martyrs
even going back to John the Baptist. Interestingly Eulogius in his
attack on Mul].ammad as a false prophet made use of a Life of the
founder of Islam that he had brought back from his visit to Pamplona
in 848.71
This journey, which Eulogius initially undertook in search of his
brothers then delayed at Mainz in the east of the Frankish kingdom,