Hypotheses

After Tuesday's lecture on the economic rise of Spain, I am intrigued by two points:
- The notion of the Islamic factoria, and what may be conceived of as their modern analogue in China,
- The deterioration of Western Europe's trade infrastructure during the 16th century

We spoke little of the factoria in class, so I am treading unknown waters to some extent in my speculations, but it seems that the situation and circumstances of the factoria parallel the development of the western manufacturing sector in China. Significantly, the two seem similar in their restriction of the foreign element. In the factoria, workers of other religions were free to speak as they pleased, espousing their faith and acting within their custom. Beyond the walls of the factoria, however, the law forbade evangelism and outright display of religious beliefs alien to Islam. Though I don't believe the religious contention is so serious an issue in China, cultural restriction is taken seriously (it might be argued that these are really very similar issues, religion and culture being irrevocably intertwined). That is not to say that no elements of the flourishing Western manufacturing sector find their way into Chinese culture, but simply that it is discouraged and restricted.

In both cases, the foreign element was encouraged due to the high profitability of the less restrictive policies of the other society... I think this speaks to the value of free trade, insofar as the culturally isolationist societies come to rely on the industry of others for the prosperity of the state, but this is merely a conjecture. Such conclusions require far more depth of examination.

Onto the second point: the deterioration of trade infrastructure. This is another topic about which I'd like to learn more, especially concerning the distribution of accumulated damage to roads and bridges, and the level of societal concern such degeneration brought about. What is clear is how such deterioration must have led to exorbitant wealth for the Crown - nothing could have made the Strait of Gibraltar a more valuable vein to control. I am curious now as to when the British Empire took control of the Strait, and by what means they were able to gain that control (beyond the obvious: arms).

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Last autumn I began backpacking, usually on the Superior Hiking Trail, which is an 18-inch wide treadway from Duluth, MN to Canada. Given the frequency and enthusiasm with which my friend and I were hiking the trail, we thought to purchase a trailguide: the Fifth Edition of the Guide to the Superior Hiking Trail. Never had I considered that such books might have a history of their own.

Selection 26 from Constable's Medieval Iberia is a collection of sections from the Pilgrim's Guide to Santiago de Campostela, including the discussions of water safety, indigenous peoples, and the Cathedral itself. For each of these, a modern analogue may be found in the Guide to the SHT and similar texts. For water quality, times have changed, and much of the discussion of water on the SHT is limited to, "All water must be boiled, filtered, or chemically treated," (SHT 39), whereas the Pilgrim's Guide offers an extensive characterization of the quality in all rivers one might pass on the way to Compostela. That is not to say that the level of caution taken with water sources has changed in any way, just the management thereof. One need only look to the several pages of discussion on the topic in Advanced Backpacking, warding off water near farmland. Even the discussion of local water enters the game as the author recalls, "Once on a recent trip in Europe, I contracted a violent intestinal illness despite having treated all of my water," (AB 25). Such tales are not entirely removed from the author of the Pilgrim's Guide recalling the death of his horse at the side of a brook in Lorca.

As for the indigenous peoples, nothing quite so abrasive exists in the modern guidebooks, but cultural collision remains a serious topic in the dispensation of advice to travelers in foreign lands. Advanced Backpacking, for example, takes a couple of pages to remind female backpackers that, "in some cultures, some men seem to think that it's perfectly acceptable to follow, harass, proposition, and even harm female solo travelers," (AB 189). One may find here echoes of the discussion of the "barbarous" peoples in the Pilgrim's Guide, although the spin on how to handle such cultural dissonance has moved from the "disdain and dismiss" of the PG to "blend and respect with caution" in the modern books.

As for the final section of the Constable selection, it goes without saying that no traveler misses an opportunity to eulogize the sights he has seen. Just as the Pilgrim's Guide discusses the history and tales of Compostela, the SHT guidebook is littered with passages describing the origins and stories of each landmark along the trail.

It is perhaps of little surprise that the guidebook, as a genre, as changed little since the middle ages, but it is something of a comfort to know that common sense has not changed much and that the passage of sagely trail advice is a venerable old tradition.

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I come away from class this afternoon with the notion of "frontier lands" in mind, specifically in the context of the Libros de Recimiente, penned after the conquest of various Moorish lands by Christian armies from 1291 to 1491 (Selection 41 from Constable's Medieval Spain).

These documents discuss who may settle on the newly conquered territory and with what rewards they would settle, as determined by age, sex, marriage, and military status. In a sense, they are not so far removed from both the English land grants in Ireland and the colonization efforts of the New World, such as Jamestown and Roanoke. This provides a strange polarity though, the English grants in Ireland were quite different in method and motivation from those in America (though both were English endeavors). The Libros, I think, are a middle ground between these.

The hostile frontier bears wide implications for those who will settle upon them. Along with the usual vicissitudes of medieval agrarian and urban life come the added pressures of a nearby enemy and a tenuous governance. There was little assurance, at the distant extremes of the Christian territories, that the armies of the king, be he of Aragon, Castile, Portugal, or otherwise, would be active enough to watch over the fledgling townships in times of strife. This meant that each settlement was required to have its own militia, in hopes of providing some protection from the restless natives. This is an aspect shared across all examples. In North America, there were American Indian populations to watch for, in Ireland there were, of course, the Irish, and in Spain the Moors were not always compliant with the whims of their ever-changing rulers.

The scenarios differ in that the Irish lands were offered as rewards for noblemen. Extra land to hand out in the creation of ever-more knights and lords. In the American and Spanish events, however, there is much more of a colonization effort. These two are concerned with creating a foothold in new territories and holding tight. The American instance does differ, however, in that there was no infrastructure available to the colonists, whereas the Spanish were given the well-tended lands of evacuating Muslims. In this way, some further similarity between the Spanish and Irish is seen, as some of the lands granted the English included those tended and cultivated by the Irish.

Another aspect of interest is the chronological element of the grants. In the Irish situation, lands were, as has been said, granted as reward for status - something already in place upon reception of the land. In the American case, the land was granted with the future in mind. Each individual was a cog in the machine of colonization, whose worth would be revealed in the sum of his life's efforts and the success of his colony. The Spanish case is a mix of the two - at times, the land is granted to wealthy nobleman, while at other times, it is given to any man with a wife. Though each have overtones of subjugation, the former is something of a reward, while the latter is done with an eye to building civilization, to the creation, rather than display, of wealth.

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In considering the "fundamentalist" Islamic movements of Morocco and al-Andalus during the 11th - 13th centuries, I continually return to my recollections of Eric Hoffer's book, "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements," especially as concerns the role of the ribat in the formation and momentum of the Almohad and Almoravid sects. Much of "The True Believer" focuses on the psychological processes which must occur in order to affect the mass movement mentality, the foremost of which are the devaluation of self and isolation from mixed society.

To expand on these ideas, the devaluation of self refers to the ability of the group to impress upon an individual that his core beliefs are either incorrect or that he acts incorrectly upon them, and is, therefore, no longer the "good person" he thought himself to be. One may even go further and say that he is no longer the person he thought himself to be. This gives way to two phenomena: identification with the group and the need for redemption. The second, isolation from mixed society, facilitates the first, since it is only when one is removed from his usual intellectual and/or social environment that he is susceptible of completely changing his mind regarding morality and the like. It is noted, of course, that the above requires that the individual have a deep and earnest desire to be a good person to begin with.

So, how does this relate to the Moroccan Fundamentalists? In each case, the sect begins with a leader who finds himself unable to collect more than a few followers until he begins a ribat, allowing for the isolation. The first few followers provide an interesting example of Hoffer's theory in that these early members may have been particularly devout Muslims (and therefore quite concerned with being 'good people', even if they were uncertain of how best to go about this) and may have either been predisposed to think ill of themselves for whatever reason, or may have, upon reaching their future leaders been intrigued, and found their interest ridiculed by their neighbors. In either case, the first followers join the sect leader in the foundation of the ribat.

The fall of the Almoravids also finds an interesting explanation in this rubric. After crossing into the peninsula and taking power from the taifa kings, it seems likely that the Almoravides, a distinct minority in their new territories, were content to consider their sins forgiven. This seems likely in light of a lack of ribats being founded in the new kingdoms. The result, however, is that subsequent generations of Almoravides are not "tested in fire" as their parents were. They never come to believe themselves in need of redemption in a manner so intense as that of their parents, and so the fervor fades within a generation or two. And so it did - within about a century of the Almoravid rise to power, the Almoahds eradicate their rule. They, too, however, recede with the tide, and disappear within a few generations.

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I started to write this entry about certain patterns that arose in Christian-Muslim relations during the middle ages. I wanted to argue that, if one compares the Christian-Muslim cohabitation of Spain to that of the Holy Land, one finds different political structures, but nearly identical social structures. In the Peninsula, the Caliphate waned in power, giving rise to the fractious taifas, which the Christians in the north exploited by offers of protection for vast sums of what was essentially tribute money. In the Holy Land, the Saracen and Christian rulers would, during the intermittent peacetimes, treaty with one another for the economic benefit afforded by such accords. While the states pressed ominously against one another's borders, vacillating between war and peace, the Christian and Muslim men and women, the ordinary people, continued to trade and work with one another, the only difference being that at one time or another, a different religion would rule.

And this is so.

But, the salient feature here is not these two peoples in these two instances in this particular period. Rather, what comes through is that the people, the individual men, women, and children know little of the greater political machine. As subjects of their king, emir, caliph, or count the vast majority of people seem to have lived simple lives, without the romance of great battles and upheavals. They seem to have gotten along with their neighbors, for the most part, regardless of which edition of The Book they followed.

Were it not so, the wars could not have gone on. This, I think, lends some irony to the situation. At the "lower" echelons of society Muslim and Christian worked side by side during the periods of Caliphate, taifa, and Kingdom, producing goods and services. At one point, Fletcher mentions the vast number of charges and bows Moorish factories could put out during the Caliphate of Cordoba - I wonder, how many of the factory workers were Christians and Jews? Given that the population was still, at this time, largely Christian (Hispano-Romans their predecessors, mostly, with some of the recently deposed Visigoths), it stands to reason that there were at least a fair number of Christians at the factories of the Caliphate. And therein lies the irony. It was peace between common men that allowed the wars of religion to take rage.

And so it is today.

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Though I was absent for this day of class, I did settle in to watch El Cid one evening a few days later, which was about the time that I finished reading Fletcher's The Quest for El Cid. Being unable to find a copy of the History Channel's production short of shelling out $80 for the series in which El Cid is featured, I have only three sources to work with, rather than four. That said, since Fletcher appeared in the History Channel production, I'm sure there is no vast difference between the scholarship offered in his book and that of the video (though the book, I'm sure, is nowhere near as gory as the HC production).

That said, one of the differences I found most intriguing between the three sources is the portrayal of El Cid's death. In the film version, the audience is shown the hero who fights on, even in death, inspiring thousands to win the day with narry a scratch. In the poem, Rodrigo Diaz dies quietly in his bed with his wife near by, his daughters happily married, and the city of Valencia at peace. In Fletcher's book, a third version is given, which comes from the Estoria de Cardena. Here, the origin of the otherwise inexplicable scene at the end of the film becomes clear. El Cid auto-embalms his body, which, after his death, is strapped to Babieca, so he may ride back to Cardena in Castile, and remain seated on his ivory seat for another 10 years before being buried beside his wife. Of these various tellings, the closest to actuality is that of the Poem, though it, too, has its departures.

Each of these, rather than portraying the historical man and his surroundings, tells a story. Each does so with a purpose intended, the roots of which are, I think, to be found in the parent culture. I can say little about the story told in the Estoria de Cardena, since it was only briefly discussed in Fletcher's book, but if I had to guess, I would suggest that the motivation for the strange tale told may be to anchor the fantastic. By the author's time, the legend of Rodrigo Diaz may have spiraled beyond the pale of believability for most, with tales such as the dead man mounted being woven by every Sancho on the corner. This, I think, is the reason for the Alfonso VI who, "no longer take[s] it as a miracle" that the body of El Cid is so well preserved - this character is, perhaps, to be the voice of the audience, who, upon reading the chronicle, no longer roll jaded eyes at the tale, but come to "understand" how such remarkable events are possible.

Interpreting the poem's version of El Cid's death is aided as much by analysis of what is not said as by that of what is said. In the poem, Rodrigo Diaz dies peacefully in Valencia, and the poem ends. Nothing is said of the strife and labor foisted upon Ximena. Even less of the loss of Valencia just a few years later. Such details would not befit the Poem of El Cid - this is an epic about a man whose honor, courage, piety, dignity, and fealty brought him great wealth and boundless respect. To tell of the disasters that befell his loved ones after his death and the eventual loss of all his life had gained would be to counter all that the poem had theretofore given to its readers. Rather than informing the audience of the proper way to live, it would show them the futility of such endeavors. The Poem of El Cid cannot end with the continued details of Valencia, it must end warmly with the peaceful passing of El Cid.

As for the film version, Fletcher's remarks regarding the motivations of Ramon Mendez Pidal (acting as the film's historical adviser) are evident in the El Cid's terrific final scene - it is not merely the man fighting the infidel, no, it is not merely the spirit of the man, no - it is the spirit of Spain, the unity of Spain driving the Moors from the city of Valencia. Yet again, the story must end in victory, but here, in 1950s-1960s Spain, there is little use for a manual for the proper vassal, rather the fighting spirit must come through. The politics of the day demand that Spain find knowledge of its own spirit, as only a hero can give it.

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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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Barton's A History of Spain: Ch 1

Even an overview of our knowledge of prehistoric Spain so brief as this sends the imagination running rampant. The migration of Cro-Magnon man into the Neanderthal territories of Paleolithic Spain reads like a novel... the ruddy-skinned Neanderthal stands watch on the highest hill, shepherd before shepherds over his tribe, when he sees in the distance a small band of strange and similar creatures...

Does the Neanderthal society consider itself "other" than animal, or "more" than animal, as we tend to now?

No matter, he sees this new creature, which he could not know as Cro-Magnon, but only as somehow different, something removed from kith and kin, but not entirely. He stalks the beast. It, too, walks upright - two legs, and two arms, as no other creatures have. None, but he and this new one. Yet, this one is something more - he takes in the entire world and recreates it at will. It is imperfect, but it is what Neanderthal cannot do.

Did these two struggle? At first, it seems they must have - scenes from a centuries-long battle are strangely obvious, floating in vibrant crimson, while thoughts of how our existence might differ, were the Neanderthal to have dug his spear just a little deeper, flicker past the mind transfixed on the could-have-been. But then, it surfaces again: Cro-Magnon man created art. Surely then, Cro-Magnon knew himself to be different from the animals... Perhaps Neanderthal saw these small acts of creation, and drew from these, if nothing else, that the world was created - that it was not but is. Perhaps he thought himself in the presence of god(s) - perhaps there was no struggle at all.

I guess that is unlikely, but one needn't look so far as the superiority of Cro-Magnon's physiology and diet to conclude that Neanderthal stood no chance. Against a creative society... Neanderthal had no more change of defeating Cro-Magnon than did a pack of wolves. After all, it wasn't called The Art of War for nothing... There are few forces more frightening than that of the creative mind set to destruction.

I imagine that the reaction of Neanderthal to the creative powers of Cro-Magnon must have looked something like that of the First Foundationers to the Mule and the Second Foundation in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series...

Another point of interest is the slow spread of metallurgy on the Peninsula. The blame for this is most likely, I think, to fall on the shoulders of the population differentials between the exporting Mediterranean societies of Attica and Phoenicia and the importing Iberian Peninsula. A sparse population would find the great leap in production afforded by the new technology without value without the population to consume it - rotting meat serves no purpose. With the introduction and advancement of agriculture, however, the population would swell, accounting for the late but emphatic adoption of the technology.

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For the most part, entries under this category will consist of recordings of reactions to readings, lectures, and other materials for each week of course HIST3714: Medieval Spain, taught at the UofM Twin Cities campus.

I've only recently come to realize how little attention my studies of Medieval History have paid to Spain. That is not to say that I've covered in depth all other regions, peoples, and trends, just that, upon reflection, it is evident that my knowledge of the Iberian Peninsula from the distant past to recent history is rather dismal... This, as I was relived to learn in class, is par for the course. The peninsula, I am told, does not follow the patterns of crusading and conquering that the greater western culture engages in. Though, from last semester's study of Medieval Art, it does seem to have some continuity in architectural style (I have in mind Santiago de Compastela).

Studying the geography of Spain does shed some light on the reasons for habitually glossing over its history. Such varied terrain is sure to provoke little in the way of united sentiment - after all, when one lives in snow-capped mountains, one can hardly expect arid desert-dwellers to share the same concerns, let alone daily experiences. One can easily imagine how, in a time in which the resources of the land were all there was to be had, such varied regions would even have different gods, not as a matter of rebellion or conflict, but simply as a result of praying for water or praying for warmth.

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