[Illustration: XXXV ABBOT SAMSON'S BELL (_9th Century. Museum of Cordova_)]
A similar cross belongs to the parish church of San Julian de Recaré, in the province of Lugo, while San Pedro de Donas, near Santiago in Galicia, possesses a processional cross of bronze, pierced along the edges in a pattern of trefoils and _fleurs-de-lis_, but otherwise undecorated.
Sometimes in Spanish bronze we find the handiwork of Moors and Christians picturesquely intermingled, as in the gates of Toledo cathedral (1337), and the Puertas del Perdón--forming the principal entrance to the Court of Orange Trees--of the mosque of Cordova, made of wood and covered with bronze plating decorated with irregular hexagons and Gothic and Arabic inscriptions. The knockers contain a scroll and flowers, and on the scroll the words, _Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel_. The gate of the same name of Seville cathedral (Pl. xxxvii.) is similar in workmanship, and is considered by Riaño to be a good example of Moresque bronze-work.
While speaking of these doors, we should remember that Moorish craftsmen were employed to decorate or to repair the mosque of Cordova long after it had been converted to the worship of the Christians. When he was acting as viceroy in the year 1275, the Infante Don Fernando confirmed a letter of his father, King Alfonso, remitting tolls and taxes that would otherwise be leviable upon four Moors who worked in the cathedral. The Infante's confirmation, after recording that "one (of the four Moors) is dead and the other blind, in such wise that he can work no more," consents to the engagement of another two, Famet and Zahec by name, to fill their places, and who also are hereby exempted from the payment of all dues. Five years afterwards this privilege was reconfirmed by King Alfonso, and we are further told on this occasion that two of the Moorish four were _albañís_, or masons, and the others _añaiares_, or carpenters. As time progressed, the situation of the vanquished and humiliated Mussulmans grew more irksome. On October 25th, 1320, the Infante Don Sancho, who had usurped the throne, proclaimed, in ratification of a letter issued by his father, that all the Moorish carpenters, masons, sawyers, and other workmen and artificers of Cordova must work in the cathedral (presumably without a wage) for two days in every year.[94]