Abencerra'ges, a noble Moorish family which came to Spain in the 8th century, and were named from Jnsuf ben Serragh. Their struggles with the family of the Zegris, and tragical destruction in the royal palace of the Alhambra, in Granada, in the time of Abu Hassan (1466-84), the last but one of the kings of Granada, furnish the materials for the legend, probably unhistorical, found in Perez de Hita's Historia de las Guerras Civiles de Granada (1694). On this Chateaubriand based his romance, Les Aventures du dernier des Abencérages, which furnished Cherubini with the text of an opera.
Abencerra'ges
Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Volume 1: A to Beaufort, p. 12
Source scan(s): p. 0025