A
 

CHAPTER   THE  SIXTH

THE CONTRACTION  OF  EMPIRE

(BENI   MARIN  PERIOD)
1213-1524

GRAPHIC   account  of the   origin   and   incoming
of the new masters   of Morocco is to be found in
the  " Raod   el   Kartas,"   compiled   about   the
The Beni Marin    middle of their period.    Once again, as in the

Invasion.                                          '                                   \             -r-»      1           1          1                       i

days of the Lamtuna, a Berber horde poured
over the Atlas, " like the rain, or the stars, or the locusts,
for number." This time they belonged to the great rival
clan of Zanata, yet nevertheless claimed descent from
the Arabs by way of Goliath 1^* Every year, to seek the
pasture of the North, they came from their desert home
between Tafilalt and Zab in southern Algeria, where they
acknowledged no ameer, and knew no coinage or taxes^
their property consisting only of horses, camels, and
slaves.2     In   the   time   of   Yakub   el   Mansur  they  had

* Among the quaint conceits which have been grafted on to Moorish history
was the suggestion that "los reyes Beni Merines, Seigneurs d'Afrique," were
descended from the Genoese family of Marini, which formed the theme of
a publication at Naples in 1626, Origen y descendencia de los reyes Beni
Merines.''^ Federico de Federici, author of Farniglie che so no state en Genova
prima delVanno, 1525,^ says : "Giacomo de Marini went to Ceuta in 1233 as-
ambassador, and remained there, leaving descendants." These were spoken of
by Leo Africanus as residing at Salli in the beginning of the sixteenth century,
and Graberg says that Moorish traditions connect these with the Beni Marin ! *

1 Ra6p el KartAs, p. 397.           2 jbid., p. 400.           ^ vol. ii., p. 154.           4 p. 324.