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21 pages, 3934 KiB

Open AccessArticle

New Advances in Iberian Medieval Agriculture: Plant Remains from the Islamic Site of Castillo de Valtierra (Navarre, Northern Spain)

by Antonio Peralta-Gómez, Leonor Peña-Chocarro and Jesús Lorenzo Jiménez

Plants 2024, 13(21), 3047; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants13213047 - 31 Oct 2024

Viewed by 1876

Abstract

There has been a notable lack of archaeological research into the medieval period in Iberia, particularly in comparison to earlier periods. Consequently, the majority of our current understanding of agricultural practices and plant food sources in this region is derived from textual sources. [...] Read more.

There has been a notable lack of archaeological research into the medieval period in Iberia, particularly in comparison to earlier periods. Consequently, the majority of our current understanding of agricultural practices and plant food sources in this region is derived from textual sources. However, there has been a notable increase in interest in archaeobotanical studies in medieval contexts over the past decade. In this context, this paper presents the results of a study of plant remains from Castillo de Valtierra (Navarre), with the objective of providing insights into agricultural practices and dietary habits during the Islamic period. In this area (the Ebro Valley), the Islamic period is divided as follows: Emiral period 756–929 AD, Caliphal period 929–ca.1012 AD, Taifal period ca.1012–1119 AD. This period was followed by the Christian period from 1119 AD onwards. Samples were collected from a variety of contexts in a systematic manner. A total of 2574 remains were recovered, and 57 taxa were identified. The findings of this study demonstrate that the community that inhabited Valtierra was primarily engaged in agricultural activities and had access to a diverse range of crops sourced from various productive areas, including cereal fields, home gardens, and forests. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Vegetation History and Archaeobotany)

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14 pages, 3019 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

The Path of African Millets (Pennisetum glaucum and Sorghum bicolor) to Iberia

by Guillem Pérez-Jordà, Leonor Peña-Chocarro, Diego Sabato, Antonio Peralta Gómez, Agustí Ribera, Pablo García Borja, Joan Negre and Jose María Martín Civantos

Agronomy 2024, 14(10), 2375; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy14102375 - 14 Oct 2024

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2367

Abstract

Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) is the most widely cultivated millet in Africa and India but has not yet been identified in Europe, while the earliest remains of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) are attested in Italy in the fifth century AD. [...] Read more.

Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) is the most widely cultivated millet in Africa and India but has not yet been identified in Europe, while the earliest remains of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) are attested in Italy in the fifth century AD. This paper presents evidence that pearl millet was introduced to Iberia during the 11th–12th centuries AD. This is the first documented evidence for this African crop in Europe. Sorghum, on the other hand, appears as a later introduction (14th century AD) in Iberia. We present archaeobotanical data from eight Andalusi sites in Valencia and Andalucía (southern Iberia) where both crops have been found. We have also examined medieval textual data where references to pearl millet appeared to be absent, and we conclude that the word “dacsa”, currently used to refer to sorghum, should be understood as a reference to pearl millet. From the 16th century onwards, this term was given to maize, when the American cereal replaced the African millets. Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Plant-Crop Biology and Biochemistry)

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25 pages, 10464 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Architectural Christian Spolia in Early Medieval Iberia: Reflections between Material Reuse and Cultural Appropriation

by Enrique Daza-Pardo and Raúl Catalán-Ramos

Religions 2024, 15(6), 663; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15060663 - 28 May 2024

Viewed by 2047

Abstract

The reuse of construction materials has been a consistent practice throughout the history of architecture, especially prevalent during periods of transition when it was preferred for its ability to simplify installation and reduce construction costs. This practice was particularly common in late Roman [...] Read more.

The reuse of construction materials has been a consistent practice throughout the history of architecture, especially prevalent during periods of transition when it was preferred for its ability to simplify installation and reduce construction costs. This practice was particularly common in late Roman urban contexts, where construction materials, especially ashlar and sculptural elements, were abundant following the abandonment of temples and public buildings. However, there are occasions when the use of spolia, or reused materials, goes beyond simple material recycling. The reuse and display of certain pieces carry complex implications involving symbology, cultural appropriation, or collective memory exercises that convey messages through new buildings. In this paper, we focus on the unique case of Hispanic Christian architectural sculptures that were “recycled” in new buildings during the first centuries of Islamic domination of the Iberian Peninsula, specifically within places of worship. Through a general analysis and review of some examples, we aim to reflect on the motivations and intentionality behind the use of certain sculptural pieces and their placement in new buildings, which is not arbitrary. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Continuing Tradition? Sacralization Practices in the Early Islamicate West and the Influence of Late Antiquity)

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17 pages, 1061 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Seamen’s Guilds, Labor Organizations and Social Protest in Northern Iberia in the Late Middle Ages

by Jesús Ángel Solórzano-Telechea

Histories 2023, 3(4), 354-370; https://doi.org/10.3390/histories3040024 - 29 Nov 2023

Viewed by 2450

Abstract

Craft guilds have been at the core of important historiographical debates on the economic, social and political history of medieval cities for twenty years. The aim of this article is to examine the seamen’s guilds in the town ports of the Northern Peninsula [...] Read more.

Craft guilds have been at the core of important historiographical debates on the economic, social and political history of medieval cities for twenty years. The aim of this article is to examine the seamen’s guilds in the town ports of the Northern Peninsula in the Late Middle Ages. This study analyzes fundamental aspects of the social assistance, labor organization and social identity of the town ports, which were located on the maritime border of the Kingdom of Castile. In contrast to the more classic view of the craft guilds as protectionist institutions, which only served the interests of a privileged group of masters, this analysis highlights the contribution of the seamen’s craft guilds to the organization of labor at sea, the training of sea workers, the ability to negotiate with merchants and avoid labor exploitation, the provision of social assistance to the most vulnerable population, and the ability to lead the social protest for the guilders’ representation in the urban government. In summary, it is concluded that the seafarers’ guilds were constituted as networks of mutual help between individuals in the labor, welfare and political spheres of the population of the town ports of northern Iberia in the Late Middle Ages. Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Political, Institutional, and Economy History)

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15 pages, 816 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Rituals of Victory: The Role of Liturgy in the Consecration of Mosques in the Castilian Expansion over Islam from Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries

by Marisa Bueno Sánchez

Religions 2022, 13(5), 379; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13050379 - 20 Apr 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3657

Abstract

Scholarly work on the conquest of Muslim cities in the so-called Castilian Reconquista has focused largely on political consequences rather than conquest rituals. Against the previous background, this article turns attention toward civil and religious rituals associated with the Christian conquest of Muslim [...] Read more.

Scholarly work on the conquest of Muslim cities in the so-called Castilian Reconquista has focused largely on political consequences rather than conquest rituals. Against the previous background, this article turns attention toward civil and religious rituals associated with the Christian conquest of Muslim cities as an expression of triumph. Among these rituals, the conversion of the congregational mosques has been discussed in chronicles and liturgical books that reveals the role of liturgy to understand both appropriation and sacralization of the mosque to remove these places from Muslim control, restoring the Christian faith in the new churches. These rituals are an evident legacy of Roman law modified in late antiquity, and this paper’s main aim is to highlight the re-use of preexisting Church consecration ceremonies gathered in the Roman Pontifical in order to clean up the “Mohammedan filth” applied to post-Reconquista churches. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Liturgy in the Middle Ages)

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5 pages, 2443 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Nasrid Granada: The Case for Spain’s Cross-Cultural Identity

by Elizabeth Drayson

Histories 2022, 2(1), 75-79; https://doi.org/10.3390/histories2010007 - 4 Mar 2022

Viewed by 5452

Abstract

For 2000 years, the history of Granada has been the story of its peoples—native Iberian, Roman, Jewish, Muslim, Christian and gypsy—who bequeathed a multi-cultural heritage to the city, forged by momentous racial, religious and political conflicts. That heritage is central to Spain’s vexed [...] Read more.

For 2000 years, the history of Granada has been the story of its peoples—native Iberian, Roman, Jewish, Muslim, Christian and gypsy—who bequeathed a multi-cultural heritage to the city, forged by momentous racial, religious and political conflicts. That heritage is central to Spain’s vexed quest for its own identity, and pre-eminent in that quest is the encounter between Islam and Christianity that took place there. Based on historical sources including oral and written testimonies, early historiography and contemporary historical views, this article considers the answers to two key questions, with specific reference to the Nasrid dynasty of Granada: (i) how did the Nasrids contribute to the culture of Andalusia and the late medieval Mediterranean, and (ii) was religious difference an obstacle to cultural dialogue in Granada in the late Middle Ages? The contention is that Granada’s importance as a meeting place between Islam and Christianity hinges on its apparent transition from Muslim state to Christian enclave, an event crucial to our understanding of the history of the Iberian Peninsula, and also of Europe. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Revisiting the Legacy of Al-Andalus)

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26 pages, 64366 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Crops on the Rocks: Production, Processing, and Storage at the Early Medieval Site of Senhora Do Barrocal (Municipality of Sátão, Central Portugal)

by Luís Seabra, Catarina Tente, Filipe Costa Vaz, Cláudia Oliveira, Lara González Carretero and João Pedro Tereso

Plants 2022, 11(4), 471; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11040471 - 9 Feb 2022

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2960

Abstract

Small rural places are largely absent from early medieval written sources, but they were profuse and relevant in regional settlements and economies. Only through archaeological and archaeobotanical investigation is it possible to unveil their structure and productive strategies; however, this kind of investigation [...] Read more.

Small rural places are largely absent from early medieval written sources, but they were profuse and relevant in regional settlements and economies. Only through archaeological and archaeobotanical investigation is it possible to unveil their structure and productive strategies; however, this kind of investigation is still uncommon in Iberia. Here, the assemblage of fruits/seeds, wood charcoal, and food remains from Senhora do Barrocal (SB) (Sátão, Portugal) will be presented and discussed in order to understand the crop production, processing, and storage. The site was destroyed by a fire somewhere between the 10th and the 11th centuries AD, which allowed the preservation of abundant plant remains in a storage area. Charcoal analyses suggest that the building was made with oak and chestnut timber. The massive fruits/seeds assemblage was dominated by cereals, mostly oat and rye, but also barley, millet, and naked wheat, some fully dehusked, others still hulled. Furthermore, evidence of food products has also been found, suggesting that the area was used for the storage of multiple foods and crops at different processing stages. SB is a good example of how communities adopted a diverse set of crops and multifaceted storage strategies to prevent food shortages and to endure in a harsh environment. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Crops and Agriculture in Medieval Age in Europe)

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12 pages, 292 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Ontology, Arrangement, and Appearance of Paradise in Castilian Kabbalah in Light of Contemporary Islamic Traditions from al-Andalus

by Avishai Bar-Asher

Religions 2020, 11(11), 553; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11110553 - 26 Oct 2020

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2927

Abstract

This study is a comparative analysis of the appearances of the lower and upper Paradise, their divisions, and the journeys to and within them, which appear in mystical Jewish and Islamic sources in medieval Iberia. Ibn al-‘Arabī’s vast output on the Gardens of [...] Read more.

This study is a comparative analysis of the appearances of the lower and upper Paradise, their divisions, and the journeys to and within them, which appear in mystical Jewish and Islamic sources in medieval Iberia. Ibn al-‘Arabī’s vast output on the Gardens of divine reward and their divisions generated a number of instructive comparisons to the eschatological and theosophical writing about the same subject in early Spanish Kabbalah. Although there is no direct historical evidence that kabbalists knew of such Arabic works from the region Catalonia or Andalusia, there are commonalities in fundamental imagery and in ontological and exegetical assumptions that resulted from an internalization of similar patterns of thought. It is quite reasonable to assume that these literary corpora, both products of the thirteenth century, were shaped by common sources from earlier visionary literature. The prevalence of translations of religious writing about ascents on high, produced in Castile in the later thirteenth century, can help explain the sudden appearance of visionary literature on Paradise and its divisions in the writings of Jewish esotericists of the same region. These findings therefore enrich our knowledge of the literary, intellectual, and creative background against which these kabbalists were working when they chose to depict Paradise in the way that they did, at the time that they did. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spanish Mysticism)

28 pages, 17955 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Medieval Synagogue of Molina de Aragón: Architecture and Decoration

by Daniel Muñoz-Garrido

Arts 2020, 9(1), 9; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts9010009 - 12 Jan 2020

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 6457

Abstract

The remains of a medieval synagogue, in addition to numerous fragments of plaster decoration, have been found as a result of the excavation work done at the Prao de los Judíos archaeological site in the town of Molina de Aragón (Guadalajara, Spain). These [...] Read more.

The remains of a medieval synagogue, in addition to numerous fragments of plaster decoration, have been found as a result of the excavation work done at the Prao de los Judíos archaeological site in the town of Molina de Aragón (Guadalajara, Spain). These remains suggest that the synagogue was built in the second half of the thirteenth century and that it was refashioned later in the fourteenth century following the same artistic model of the synagogues of Córdoba and El Tránsito. Based on comparative analysis, this article studies the Synagogue of Molina de Aragón in relation to other medieval Iberian synagogues. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Synagogue Art and Architecture)

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16 pages, 276 KiB

Open AccessArticle

“El entendimiento con el qual me conoscan”: Intellectual Mysticism in the Visión Deleitable

by Michelle M. Hamilton

Religions 2020, 11(1), 5; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11010005 - 20 Dec 2019

Viewed by 2675

Abstract

Visión deleytable is a fictional tale based in the Aristotelian philosophical and Neoplatonic mystical beliefs of the Judeo-Arabic tradition of medieval Iberia. This fifteenth-century work of imaginative fiction, a “best-seller” among Iberian readers, tells of the ascent of the active intellect to the [...] Read more.

Visión deleytable is a fictional tale based in the Aristotelian philosophical and Neoplatonic mystical beliefs of the Judeo-Arabic tradition of medieval Iberia. This fifteenth-century work of imaginative fiction, a “best-seller” among Iberian readers, tells of the ascent of the active intellect to the celestial spheres and an experience of God. In this narrative, knowledge of the Latin trivium and quadrivium are combined with that of the Arabo-Andalusi philosophic traditions. Particularly noteworthy is the author, De la Torre’s extensive use of Maimonides’ work, the Guide of the Perplexed, as a source for the wisdom revealed in the Visión deleytable. While Maimonides’ position on the mystic experience is debated by contemporary scholars, in the present study I explore how the concept of intellectual mysticism, applied to the Neoplatonic/Aristotelian model of the intellect’s conjunction with the divine as found in Maimonides’ work, also describes the goal toward which the protagonist (and reader) of the Visión deleytable strive. As such, the Visión deleytable reveals how this notion of human-divine union (most notably in the concept of the “prophet-angel”) from the Judeo-Andalusi tradition, transmitted in Arabic and Hebrew, was translated into Spanish and adopted into the Catholic and converso frameworks of the Visión deleytable in fifteenth-century Iberia. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mysticism and Spirituality in Medieval Spain)

31 pages, 667 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Rhetorical Conflicts: Civilizational Discourse and the Contested Patrimonies of Spain’s Festivals of Moors and Christians

by David A. Shefferman

Religions 2014, 5(1), 126-156; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel5010126 - 20 Feb 2014

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 10141

Abstract

The title of this essay identifies a series of verbal scuffles—or “rhetorical conflicts”—that developed in the fall of 2006 within Spain’s larger culture wars. The political skirmishes coalesced around an announcement by the Popular Party (PP) to champion a class of regional festivals [...] Read more.

The title of this essay identifies a series of verbal scuffles—or “rhetorical conflicts”—that developed in the fall of 2006 within Spain’s larger culture wars. The political skirmishes coalesced around an announcement by the Popular Party (PP) to champion a class of regional festivals for U.N. designation as indispensible elements of “human patrimony.” The war of words stemmed from the PP’s politicization of cultural designations, but the celebrations in question—the fiestas of Moors and Christians common in the south of Valencia region—already generated controversy since they display “rhetorical conflicts” of a different sort: In potentially offensive fashion, the festivals present carnivalesque re-enactments of battles in the medieval “Reconquest” of Iberia by Christian armies over Islamic “Moors.” The essay situates these entangled controversies in the broader context of waves of immigration that have accompanied, or even fueled, a trans-Atlantic discourse centered on notions of a geopolitical “clash of civilizations” between Islam and the West. Accordingly, the debates about the Moors and Christians festivals—like the celebrations themselves—reveal deep ambivalence about the role of Islam and of Muslims in Spain’s past and present. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Islam, Immigration, and Identity)

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