While in the barbarous Europe of the Franks, the Anglo-Normans, and the Germans, the people lived in hovels, and the kings and barons in rocky castles blackened by the smoke of their fires, devoured by vermin, dressed in coarse serge, and fed like prehistoric man, the Spanish Arabs were raising their fantastic alcazars, and, with the refinement of ancient Rome, they met at their baths to converse on all literary and scientific questions.
"The Shadow of the Cathedral"
Vicente Blasco Ibañez