Hypotheses

While reading Richard Fletcher's Moorish Spain, I was struck by the similarity of the architectural style demonstrated in the Great Mosque of Cordoba in Spain and that of the Carolingian and Ottonian churches to the north, which I studied last semester.

First, a look at the interior of the Great Mosque. Now, if one looks at a photo of Charlemagne's Palatine Chapel at Aachen, or, even more strikingly, the church at Hildesheim, a single shared feature will stand out among the three: the starkly contrasting stones of the rounded arches throughout each building. In Hildesheim and the Mosque, they are even of the same color, suggesting perhaps that the marble is of common origin, though this is to get ahead of myself somewhat.

In overall style, these buildings could hardly differ more from one another. Hildesheim harkens back to the old Roman basilica with clean lines, a flat ceiling, and a clearly demarcated three-part elevation (arcade, triforium, clerestory). The Palatine Chapel is of a circular plan and exudes a uniquely Carolingian aura of solidity and presence, granted by the immense piers and otherwise superfluous colonettes on the third tier. In perfect contrast, the thin columns of the Mosque bear a closer resemblance to the Gothic style of the late medieval period, as they create an ethereal space, easily flooded with light.

The salient ornamentation, however, is consistent between the three. At Hildesheim, the bands of color are somewhat narrower, but the effect is similar, and immediately calls to mind the Muslim and Carolingian predecessors. So, barring the possibility that both the Islamic and Christian architects just really liked the pattern and independently chose to use it in the same type of building, in the same position, and at the same time, where did the style originate?

As Barton mentions in his A History of Spain, trade between the two cultures was fairly common, and treaties between the Christians remaining in the northern regions of Iberia and Al-Andalus were not unheard of (Constable, Medieval Iberia, p37). So, one of the two may have acted as a source for not only merchant's goods, but artistic influence as well. But which one?

From what I've learned of early Christian architecture, I would suggest that the Muslim architects were responsible for this particular stylistic import, rather than the Christians bringing it to Al-Andalus. If one goes back a few centuries to the time of Constantine's conversion to Christianity, the surviving basilicas and records thereof do not seem to possess this element, nor does the familiar knot-work style of the Hiberno-Saxons of the period between the fall of Rome and the rise of The Holy Roman Empire suggest anything so stark as this pattern.

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There is a strange contrast between the intellectual prowess of the Caliphate of Cordoba during the 10th century and its political divisiveness during that period, although this impression may be nothing more than a fiction of the desire to believe intellectual advance to be a unifying force. Then again, perhaps it is evidence of the ever ambivalent human spirit, or the strain of a warlike era.

Toward the end of Ch. 4 in Fletcher's Moorish Spain, he discusses the torrent of intellectual activity coming from extensive patronage of the arts. The Moors were assimilating the works of Ancient Greece, translating Ptolemy and others, and discovering unknown intricacies of mathematics and astronomy. . .

During the same period, Abd' al-Rahaman III declares himself Caliph over al-Andalus, plunging the region into explicit conflict with the rest of the Muslim world. Furthermore, they campaigned northward into Christian territories, striking Leon, Castile, and others.

Perhaps the spoils of war are more than land, but also culture and ideas. Though now, I'm faced with a chicken-and-the-egg sort of problem. I suppose this is nowhere near so definite a question as that, the case can be made either way: Intellectual pregnancies are sometimes miscarriages, as World War II amply testifies. On the other hand, war brings with it the spoils of culture - hence the survival of the works of Aristotle. Then again, perhaps the two are independent.

. . . One can take this either optimistically, supposing it evidence that the intellect of man needs neither the strife of war nor the pleasantries of peace to aspire to greatness, or one may take the dismal route, admitting that war is a constant, neither sharpened nor shaken by the accomplishments of the mind. The latter, though, at least comes with the hopeful proviso that intellectual activity is a constant as well.

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Perspective is a strange creature. When I read "so-and-so's prosperous dynasty lasted from the end of the 8th century to the late 9th...," my immediate reaction is, "but that's so short! How can that have been prosperous? How could those people have believed themselves living in a Dynasty when it was less than one hundred years?" The tenures of rule seem so short, and they ARE in the grand scale, as are all things younger than the stars.

Yet, as the vastness of the once-great Roman Empire comes into focus, and its dissolution into the Byzantine, and now nothing weigh into the continuity of history, I see irony in my own perception. The world of my generation seems such a solid place... as though the oscillations of borders were governed by some dwindling function, massive at its origin, and calming ever through the ages... as though battles were a thing of the past, barbaric and needless.

This, I imagine, could not be further from the truth. I know that the world changed at the end of the last World War as much as it did during the collapse of Rome, I know that the function is merely coming to a lull, neither deterred nor encouraged by the passage of time, simply passing through cycles of war and peace, indifferent to the age. So long as the tide rolls, war will rise and fall. This I know, but do not believe. ...and so it was with the Visigoths, and the Umayyads in Spain. These short dynasties were hard won by their founders, the grandchildren of whom knew nothing of it. It is certainly worth wondering how much of the duration of these kingships owed itself to the quality of the culture, and how much to the fading memory of battle, and to what extent these are truly separate considerations.

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