Cynthia Robinson, Simone Pinet-Courting The Alhambra - Cross-Disciplinary Approaches To The Hall of Justice Ceilings-Brill (2008)

Courting The Alhambra
Courting The Alhambra

Cross-Disciplinary Approaches to the
Hall of Justice Ceilings
Cynthia Robinson
Department of Art History and Visual Culture,
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
Simone Pinet
Department of Romance Studies,
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
Leiden Boston
2008
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Courting the Alhambra: Cross-Disciplinary Approaches to the Hall of Justice Ceilings /

edited by Cynthia Robinson, Simone Pinet.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-90-04-17342-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Mural painting and decoration, IslamicSpainGranada. 2. Hall of Justice (Alham-
bra, Granada, Spain) 3. Decoration and ornament, IslamicSpainGranada. 4. Deco-
ration and ornament, ArchitecturalSpainGranada. 5. CeilingsSpainGranada.
I. Robinson, Cynthia, 1962- II. Pinet, Simone. III. Title.
ND2787.G7C68 2008
759.682dc22
2008041965
ISBN-13 978 90 04 17342 2
Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
All rights reserved. No part of this publicaton may be reproduced, translated, stored in a
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Fees are subject to change.
Printed in the Netherlands

CONTENTS
Articles
Simone Pinet and Cynthia Robinson, Introduction ................ 1
Cynthia Robinson, Arthur in the Alhambra? Narrative and
Nasrid Courtly Self-Fashioning in the Hall of Justice Ceiling
Paintings ........................................................................................ 12
Ana Echevarria, Painting Politics in the Alhambra ..................... 47
Rosa Mara Rodrguez Porto, Courtliness and its Trujumanes:
Manufacturing Chivalric Imagery across the Castilian
Grenadine Frontier ................................................................... 67
Jerrilynn D. Dodds, Hunting in the Borderlands ...................... 115
Jennifer Borland, The Forested Frontier: Commentary in the
Margins of the Alhambra Ceiling Paintings .............................. 151
Amanda Luyster, Cross-Cultural Style in the Alhambra: Textiles,
Identity and Origins ................................................................. 189
Simone Pinet, Walk on the Wild Side ......................................... 216
Oscar Martn, Allegories of Love: The Alhambra Ceilings and
The Evolution of Sentimental Fiction ....................................... 238
Book Reviews
Daniel Lasker, Review of Daniel Frank, Search Scripture Well.
Karaite Exegetes and the Origins of the Jewish Bible Commentary
in the Islamic East ..................................................................... 255
Andrew Berns, Review of Elliott Horowitz: Reckless Rites: Purim
and the Legacy of Jewish Violence ................................................ 258
Brian Catlos, Review of Klein, Elka. Jews, Christian Society, and
Royal Power in Medieval Barcelona ............................................ 261
The page numbers in the above Table of contents and in the Index refer
to the bracketed page numbers in this volume.
Medieval
Jewish, Christian and Muslim Culture
Encounters
in Confluence and Dialogue
Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 153-163 www.brill.nl/me
Introduction
Cynthia Robinson, Simone Pinet

Editors
The Alhambra, a complex formed by largely fourteenth-century Nasrid

palaces, initially presents all who approach it with an imposing, impene-
trable and tower-studded faade. Those who enter, however, are rewarded
with a seemingly endless series of cool, fragrant gardens with pools and
fountains. This lush landscape is both punctuated and framed by buildings
composed of domes that appear to rival the celestial bodies themselves,
held up by slender, delicate columns reminiscent of alabaster or ivory, and
diaphanous walls woven of stucco marvels that defy even the most gifted
poetsthough more than one attempted to rise to the challenge. A visitor
rst encounters the stasis of the Hall of Comaresjewel of the so-called
Palace of the Myrtles1 and principal throne room for both the initial
patron of the palace, Yusuf I (r. 1333-1354), and his successor, Muham-
mad V (r. 1354-1391), whose proud tower appears to contemplate its own
reection in the crystalline surface of the pool before it.
The adjacent Palace of the Lions presents an entirely dierent world. Its
central patio, surrounded by a forest of columns, would originally have been
paved in white marble;2 on its long sides, one glimpses the shaded interiors
of two large, square, heavily ornamented rooms of uncertain purpose,
1
The Palace of the Myrtles was built during the rst decades of the fourteenth century,
while the Palace of the Lions was constructed between 1365 and 1390. The basic history of
the Alhambra has been succinctly summarized, in English, in Oleg Grabar, The Alhambra
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978; rev. ed. Sebastopol, CA: Solipsist Press,
1992), and, in Spanish, in Jos Miguel Puerta Vlchez, Los cdigos de utopa de la Alhambra
de Granada (Granada: Diputacin Provincial de Granada, 1990). As numerous scholars
have observed, the names currently used to refer to the various spaces that make up the
Alhambra complex originated in the nineteenth century, rather than in the thirteenth or
fourteenth; we make use of some of them in this collection for purposes of convenience.
2
Enrique Nuere Matauco, Sobre el pavimento del Patio de los Leones, Cuadernos de
la Alhambra 22 (1986), 87-93.
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2008
[2] 154 C. Robinson, S. Pinet / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 153-163
known to modern scholarship as the Hall of the Two Sisters and the
Hall of the Abencerrajes.3 On the short sides, two pavilions jut toward a
central fountain surrounded by a ring of crouching lions, from which the
palace takes its modern name. The ornamental stucco screens that com-
pose the pavilions, consisting primarily of architectural and vegetal motifs,
are delicate in appearance, perforated to allow the spaces they both delimit
and link to those around them to be dappled by the light of sun or moon.
Located behind the easternmost pavilion is a space known to modern
scholarship alternately as the Hall of Kings or the Hall of Justice (the
latter designation will be employed in this collection), composed of a long,
narrow hall open onto the patio but also screened from it by columns and
pavilion. Punctuated by six screen-like stucco arches adorned with muqar-
nas and draped with dense, naturalistic vegetation, this hall, in turn, opens
onto six shallow rooms, or alcobas, three of which are rectangular in shape
and three of which are square. The smaller square spaces are crowned by
muqarnas domes, miniature echoes of the stunning tours de force in celes-
tial illusionism that appear to hover above the nearby halls of the Two
Sisters and the Abencerrajes. The three larger, rectangular spaces, on the
other hand, rest beneath painted renditions of brilliantly colored gardens,
castles inhabited by courtly Christian lords and ladies, burbling fountains
and brooks, elegantly dressed Muslim knights deeply seated in a circle and
engaged in conversation, trysts and games of chess, coats of arms, hunts
and the rendering of tribute, a Wild Man, a lady with a lion, and scenes of
deadly combat.
The Alhambra complex itself has generated (and continues to generate)
a prolic body of scholarship; it has been the object of a myriad of inter-
pretive strategies and structures that range from the most blatant Oriental-
ism to the impartially archaeological, from careful reconstructions of its
poetics through the content and style of the verses inscribed onto its walls
3
These rooms have received a dizzying variety of interpretations of their intended func-
tion; see James Dickie, The Alhambra, in Jerrilynn D. Dodds, ed., Al Andalus: the art of
Islamic Spain (New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art: Distributed by H.N. Abrams,
1992); Antonio Fernndez-Puertas, The Alhambra (London: Saqi, 1997); Grabar, The
Alhambra; D. Fairchild Ruggles, Gardens, Landscape, and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic
Spain (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000); D. Fairchild Rug-
gles, The Eye of Sovereignty: Poetry and Vision in the Alhambras Lindaraja Mirador,
Gesta 36, 2 (1997): 180-189; Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza, El Palacio de los Leones de la
Alhambra: Madrasa, zawiya y tumba de Muhammad V? Estudio para un debate, Al-
Qantara 22, 1 (2001): 77-120; Robert Irwin, The Alhambra (London: Prole, 2004).
C. Robinson, S. Pinet / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 153-163 155 [3]
to daring (and not always entirely successful) applications of twentieth-

century critical theory.4 The paintings on leather that adorn the three vaults
above the rectangular alcobas of the Hall of Justice, however, have received
far less critical attention. Beginning in the eighteenth century, travelers
and visitors to the Alhambra expressed surprise and wonder at the presence
of these images, so clearly linked in stylistic terms to the visual heritage of
medieval Europe, rather than to the Islamic world to which the techniques
necessary for painting on leather are owed.5 During the latter decades of
the nineteenth century and the rst half of the twentieth, scholars largely
concurred in attributing the execution of the paintings to either Italian
or French artists. In 1973, however, Spanish art historian Basilio Pavn
Maldonado put forth the theory of possible Mudjar authorship, positing
that the paintings could have been carried out by Muslim artisans living
in Castile and employed by or belonging to Pedro I, and suggesting that
these artisans had perhaps been loaned by the Castilian king to his friend
and ally Muhammad V of Granada.6 Jerrilynn D. Dodds, in an article pub-
lished in Art Bulletin in 1979, was the rst American scholar to devote
serious attention to the topic, accepting Pavns Mudjar theory and pro-
posing, on the basis of it, the specic identication of a number of the courtly
scenes in Gothic or Northern style present on the northern- and
4
For a concise historiography of readings of the Alhambra from the Orientalist to the
archaeological, see the introduction to Puerta, Los cdigos de utopa. For the Alhambras
visual and verbal poetics, see Puerta, Los cdigos de utopa; ibidem, Historia del pensamiento
esttico rabe: Al-Andalus y la esttica rabe clsica (Madrid: Ediciones Akal, 1997); ibidem,
La cultura y la creacin artstica, in Historia del Reino de Granada, 3 v. (Granada: Univer-
sidad de Granada, 2002), I, 349-413; ibidem, El vocabulario esttico de los poemas de la
Alhambra, in Pensar la Alhambra, ed. J. A. Gonzlez Alcantud and A. Malpica Cuello
(Granada, 2001), 69-87; Ruggles, Eye of Sovreignty; Cynthia Robinson, Marginal
Ornament: Poetics, Mimesis, and Devotion in the Palace of the Lions, Muqarnas 25
(2008) (forthcoming). For an approach centered in the critical theory of the twentieth
century, see Valrie Gonzales, Beauty and Islam, esp. 45-50.
5
For early interpretations of the paintings, as well as a discussion of the techniques used
to produce them, see Jess Bermdez Pareja, Pinturas sobre piel en la Alhambra de Granada,
Publicaciones del Patronato de la Alhambra; 1 (Granada: Patronato de la Alhambra y Gen-
eralife, 1987); ibidem and Manuel Maldonado Rodrguez, Informe sobre tcnicas, restau-
raciones y daos sufridos por los techos pintados de la Sala de los Reyes en el Palacio de los
Leones de la Alhambra, Cuadernos de la Alhambra 6 (1970), 5-20. Ana Echevarra, in her
essay in this collection, also discusses the impression these ceilings made on at least one
sixteenth-century viewer.
6
Basilio Pavn Maldonado, Arte toledano: islmico y mudjar (Madrid: Instituto His-
pano-rabe de Cultura, 1973), 141-275.
southern-most ceilings as misunderstood representations of scenes from

French versions of Arthurian tales and Tristan and Isolde. According to
Dodds, this iconography would have reached the Grenadine court through
small luxury objects, such as carved ivory boxes.7 Dodds readingbased
on assumptions of, on the hand, intense and sustained cultural contact
and, on the other, the simultaneous and essential incomprehensibility of
one culture and its aesthetics to anotherhas represented the state of the
question for Western medievalists practically since the date of its publi-
cation, and is cited and taken at face value in most subsequent interpreta-
tions, such as Angus Mackays inuential essay of 1989.8 Islamic art
historians, for their part, have been of the unanimous opinion that the
Gothic, Northern, or Western aesthetic represented by the paintings
is essentially foreign or other to the Alhambras quintessentially Islamic
program of ornamentation; some have even expressed the opinion that,
were they to be removed altogether, the overall aesthetic of the spaces they
presently adorn would remain unchanged.9 The topic of the ceilings and
their interpretation has not been revisited for almost three decades.
The present Special Issue of Medieval Encounters represents a collabora-
tive and interdisciplinary attempt to do just that, in light of recent scholar-
ship on cultural contact and interchange in late medieval Iberia, and of
recent reinterpretations of the overall function of the building itself. This
collection is interdisciplinary in terms both of its contributorseight crit-
ical studies were solicited from art historians, literary historians and one
historianand its contributions: in the fashioning of his or her interpre-
tive strategy, each scholar steps across the boundaries that traditionally
separate the elds of specialization that comprise Medieval Studies. All
essays, likewise, represent responses to two recent and interconnected
approaches. The rst is Juan Carlos Ruiz Souzas 2001 re-interpretation
(highly controversial in some circles) of the Palace of the Lions as, among
7
Jerrilynn D. Dodds, The Paintings in the Hall of Justice of the Alhambra, The Art
Bulletin LXI, no. 2 (1979), 186-197; she revisits and somewhat revises her original inter-
pretation in the present issue.
8
Angus Mackay, Religion, Culture, and Ideology in Late Medieval Castilian-Grenadine
Frontier Societies, in Robert Bartlett and Angus MacKay, eds., Medieval Frontier Societies
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 217-244.
9
Valrie Gonzalez, Beauty and Islam: aesthetics in Islamic art and architecture (London,
New York: I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, New
York: Distributed in the USA by St. Martins Press, 2001), 47; Oleg Grabar, The Alhambra
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), 79-83.
other possible functions, a madrasa, one whose planning and construction

would have been carefully supervised by its patron, Muhammad V, and his
minister, the formidable polymath, poet, historian and Su Ibn al-Khatb.10
Contributors to this collection have found Ruiz proposal provocative,
interesting and feasible, and the re-imagining of these spaces accordingly
rather than the setting for decadent pleasure parties, or the propagandistic
panoply of ocial diplomatic receptions, the Palace of the Lions was
almost certainly, in the words of Robert Irwin, a palace built by and for
intellectuals with mystical leaningshas strongly impacted the readings
of the ceiling paintings oered in the essays to follow.11
Second, the paper representing Cynthia Robinsons initial foray into a
reconsideration of the Arthurian iconography of the northern and south-
ern ceilings (itself heavily impacted by Ruiz Souza), presented at Oxford
University in May of 2004, was circulated among most of the contributors
to this Special Issue in preparation for a pair of sessions dedicated to the
ceilings and organized, together with Simone Pinet, for the International
Congress on Medieval Studies, held at Western Michigan University in
Kalamazoo in May of 2005. Though the essay underwent considerable
revisions for its publication in this issue, the core argumentsrst, that
the iconography of the Hall of Justice paintings should be considered
alongside Castilian, rather than French, versions of courtly tales and, sec-
ond, that the specic tales represented include (but are perhaps not limited
to) versions of Tristn de Leons and Flores y Blancaor specically edited by
the Nasridswere present. Conference presentations then opened up a
plethora of new interpretive directions, and the subsequent journey from
sessions to edited issue has involved the addition of essays by Jerrilynn
Dodds and historian Ana Echevarria, as well as numerous, interdisciplin-
ary and transatlantic exchanges. This dialogue expresses itself in the pub-
lished papers in the multiple, and at times contradictory, interpretations
that we feel enrich this collection; we have therefore allowed these contra-
dictions to stand, leaving to readers to select the approaches, interpreta-
tions and suggestions they nd most persuasive as inspiration for future
research.
Though, as noted earlier, each scholarinformed both by the structures
and habits of principal disciplines and by encounters and conversations
10
Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza, El Palacio of the Lions de la Alhambra: Madrasa, zawiya y
tumba de Muhammad V? Estudio para un debate, Al-Qantara 22 (2001), 77-120.
11
Irwin, Alhambra, 99.
with the methodologies and concerns of other areas of studyhas elabo-

rated his or her own interpretive paradigm, several approaches loom large
in all of the essays. First, and perhaps the most obvious is the cross-
pollenating analysis of literary phenomena alongside developments in the
visual arts. This consideration of the Arts, whether decorative or high-
culture, visual or narrative, popular or intended for royal eyes only, as a
continuously changing and uid programme of available motifs and icon-
ographic congurations, techniques, theories of representation and atti-
tudes has resulted most importantly in the consideration of Iberian literary
materials as the immediate context for the paintings. Thus, the extensive
scholarship and insights on the variety of literary works considered in this
issue, from sentimental ction to elaborations on the Trojan tradition,
from royal hunting manuals to bestiaries and chivalric ction, frame and
in fact articulate a comparative conceptual methodology that illuminates
visual culture in provocative new ways.
Second, each author has been obliged to confront the coexistence of two
seemingly contradictory discourses present in the paintings. On the one
hand, the images both address and serve to create a culture which was an
intensely courtly one, and whichas many of the essays in this collec-
tion serve to make clearthe Nasrids shared with their Christian neigh-
bors (sometimes allies, sometimes enemies) to the north. On the other, the
paintings are just as clearly reective of a rhetoric of jihd, or holy war.
Indeed, the violence lying just beneath the carefully choreographed surface
of the hunting scenes and the (competitive) rendering of tribute to Ladies
by both Muslims and Christians in the northern ceiling erupts, on the
southern one, into representations (albeit comparatively discreet ones) of
direct conict and bloodshed, analyzed here with particular attention by
Jerrilyn Dodds and Rosa Rodrguez. Throughout most of the twentieth
century, interpretive options for the confrontation of such a dilemma were
few. One could assume the trenchant separation of medieval Iberias three
religions into their corresponding and (implicitly pure) three cultures,12
along with a consequent and mutual incomprehensibility. Alternately,
one could romanticize the Iberian Middle Ages into a utopian example of
12
This has been the approach most evident in the inuential work of historian Robert
I. Burns; see, for example, his most recent study, Unifying Crusader Valencia: The Central
Years of Jaume the Conqueror, 1270-1273 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2007).
religious tolerance and cultural acceptance which ultimately bears little

relation to a conictive reality.13
Beginning with Thomas Glicks reassessment of the over-idealized con-
cept of convivencia in 1979,14 however, scholars of the last several decades
have begun to question the monolithic assumptions and over-simplied
concepts that constituted the underpinnings of many earlier studies.15
Recent scholarship has witnessed a rejection of the sweeping generaliza-
tions implicit in such catchwords as inuence, evidencing instead a pref-
erence for the return to close readings, object-centered studies, a contextual
conceptualization stemming from micro-history in order to identify com-
mon cultural languages and places of encounter or ambiguity which might
better serve as points of departure from which to undertake an examina-
tion of such phenomena as the Hall of Justice ceilings. The essays in this
issue present the Castilian and Grenadine courts and their shared (if con-
tested) courtly culture as just such a zone or space of encounter, one
which could accommodate the conicting messages of chivalric courtliness
and jihd mentioned above, oering to Muslims and Christians alike a
space and a language in which to explore and articulate both similarities
and dierences, common interests and conicts, points of mutual conve-
nience and violent disagreement.
13
Mara Rosa Menocals most recent monograph, The Ornament of The World: how Mus-
lims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain (Boston, MA:
Little, Brown, 2002), has been heavily criticized for having fallen into this trap, though it
should be noted that a reading of her earlier publications, The Arabic Role in Medieval Liter-
ary History: A Forgotten Heritage (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987);
Shards of Love: Exile and The Origins of The Lyric (Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
1994), helps to correct any impression of the authors perception as being permanently
ltered by a pair of rose-colored spectacles.
14
Thomas F. Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages. Comparative
Perspectives on Social and Cultural Formation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1979), esp. 3-5 and 13-15, as well as his introductory essay to Vivian B. Mann, Thomas F.
Glick, and Jerrilynn D. Dodds, eds., Convivencia: Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Medieval
Spain (New York, NY: G. Braziller in association with the Jewish Museum, 1992).
15
For a discussion of recent scholarship along with bibliography, see the introductory
essays by the editors in Cynthia Robinson and Leyla Rouhi, eds., Under the Inuence. Ques-
tioning the Comparative in Medieval Castile (Leiden: Brill, 2005), esp. pp. 6-8 where the
state of the eld of Art History is addressed, as well as Mara J. Feliciano and Leyla Rouhi,
Introduction: Interrogating Iberian Frontiers, in Mara J. Feliciano, Cynthia Robinson
and Leyla Rouhi, eds., Interrogating Iberian Frontiers, Special Issue of Medieval Encounters
12 (2006), 317-328.
As each of the essays brought together in this issue demonstrates, assump-

tions concerning the purity of cultures (and, consequently, the existence of
purely Christian, Islamic or Gothic artistic styles and of the discrete
borrowings that result in visibly perceptible inuence) are not only
woefully inadequate to the task at hand, but also exacerbate its diculties,
serving to sharpen the boundaries between arbitrarily conceived and
applied categories and classications just where the Hall of Juctice ceilings
(and other, similar cultural phenomena) would most benet from a gaze
unencumbered by such limitations. Similarly, many of the essays insist on
the mediation of the Castilian court in the interpretation and initial trans-
lation of motifs or texts present in other European cultures that reappear
in a Grenadine context. Likewise, the consistent eort to contextualize or
detail the micro-history of a cultural process or a motif which characterizes
all of the essays reveals a shared belief in the necessity for the careful under-
taking of many particular case studies before we may productively attempt
any sort of generalization concerning the cultural exchanges or common
constructions that characterized medieval Iberia. Indeed, the Alhambras
Gothic ceilings are revealed to be a microcosm of a medieval Iberian
culture which was, in many of its aspects, common to all of the mythic
three religions. This culture, however, was in constant ux as positions
were staked out and negotiated by the various users of the language. It
was, moreover, neither pure nor free of contradictions or ambiguities;
rather, it (like all cultures) was precisely characterized by them.
This issue opens with Cynthia Robinsons essay. She rst challenges the
often-repeated notion of the ceilings iconographic and organizational
confusion through a detailed description of the image programs of both
northern and southern ceilings which will also serve as a useful introduc-
tion for readers unfamiliar with them. Robinson then argues that, rather
than an indiscriminate and misunderstood selection of Arthurian
imagery based on the French corpus, these images are the result of a very
careful and creative appropriation of Castilian versions of these tales
specically Flores y Blancaor and Tristn de Leons. Each narrative, how-
ever, has received a twist at the end in order to adapt it to Nasrid political
and ideological concerns, some of which were shared with Castilian neigh-
bors and allies, and some of which were not.
Ana Echevarra, whose essay represents the only contribution by a his-
torian, proposes a slightly later date for the paintings than has previously
been accepted by scholarship: according to her calculations, it is at least
possible that they were carried out, not during the reign of Pedro I, but
rather during that of his brother (and murderer), Enrique. The historical
data marshaled by Echevarra, moreover, casts serious doubt on Pavns
Mudjar artist theory, discussed above: though it is possible that Mudjar
artists were employed in the production of the paintings, it is virtually
impossible that this occurred during the reign of Pedro. The equally beloved
explanation of this sovereigns much-touted (and implicitly anomalous)
friendship with Muhammad V would thus lose its validity. More impor-
tantly, through a careful reading of the statutes of the Orden de la Banda
(Order of the Band) founded by Alfonso XI, into which it has often been
assumed that Muhammad V was inducted, Echevarra re-examines the
identication of the ten Muslim caballeros represented in the Hall of Jus-
tices central vault as a dynastic portrait of the Nasrid sultanate and ques-
tions the originality of the arms of the Order prominently displayed in this
image. Finally, through a detailed exploration of the politics of vassalage
that characterized the relationships between individual Nasrid and specic
Castilian sovereigns, she proposes that these representations would have
been added at a date signicantly later than that at which the paintings
were produced.
Departing from translation theorist Anthony Pyms concept of inter-
culture, Rosa Rodrguez Porto proposes the existence of an Iberian lan-
guage of courtly culture and imagery which constitutes just such a
phenomenon. She then embarks on a comparative analysis of the formal
repertoire of the Hall of Justice ceilings with a series of images and artifacts
dating to the middle decades of the fourteenth century, most of which
were produced in, or imported into, the context of the Castilian court.
Principal among these is the illustration program of the little-studied
Crnica Troyana de Alfonso XI (Escorial, h.I.6). Considerations of courtli-
ness, its texts and images as an interculture allow Rodrguez to explore
both Castilian appropriations of themes, texts and iconography tradition-
ally considered the property of European courts, and their appropriation
and adaptation in a Grenadine context. This concept, likewise, serves her
in identifying and exploring the tensions which underlie the apparent sim-
ilarities that, upon rst examination, would appear to characterize this
common cultural language.
Jerrilynn D. Dodds revisits her interpretation of the ceilings by address-
ing them as a vast hunting cycle, an aspect of the image program which she
she did not address in her earlier article. Dodds details the many instances
of hunting, whether metaphorical or literal, depicted in the painting cycle
of the Hall of Justice in order not only to document common styles or
motifs but also to propose shared artistic meanings. Specically, this article
proposes, through the comparative analysis of representations of the hunt
found in architectural ornament and in image programs in texts (especially
the Palace of Pedro I at the Alczar of Seville and the Libro de la montera
del rey de Castilla Alfonso XI ) that hunting is representative in the Alhambra
ceilings of a contested sovereignty and lordship over land. That is, hunting
is a sign of feudal relations and vassalage whose historical sign is reversed
in the cycle, rendering it a cypher of the confronted and violent Nasrid-
Castilian relations tenuously contained by a diplomatic alliance.
Jennifer Borlands exploration of the fauna that populate both gardens
and forests surrounding the central scenes of the Hall of Justices northern
and southern vaults draws on Michael Camilles inuential investigations
of high medieval images and their margins, as well as Nurith Kenaan-
Kedars similarly-oriented explorations of iconographic ambiguity and
polyvalence in a Romanesque context. Employing both Western medi-
eval bestiaries and Islamic (frequently Su) lore as interpretive tools, Bor-
land argues that the ceilings patrons made a deliberate selection of both
birds and mammals in order to engage in a continuous commentary on the
central narrative images. Borland locates treatises on chivalry composed by
such notoriously bi-cultural gures as Ramon Llull at the nexus between
Western and Islamic discourses concerning the signicance and ico-
nography of the ceilings animals, proposing their role as catalysts in the
creation of this visual commentary. Though, as Borland demonstrates, this
discourse at times arms the ceilings messages of courtliness and chivalry
and at times subverts them, it always does so in ways which would almost
certainly have meaningful both to Nasrid courtiers and to their Christian
visitors and allies.
Amanda Luysters essay identies and carefully describes striking formal
similarities between the Hall of Justice ceiling paintings and tapestries
containing representations of episodes from the Arthurian cycle and related
courtly or romance texts produced in Northern Europe during the four-
teenth and fteenth centuries. Such tapestries were frequently imported
for use at both Castilian and Aragonese courts. Luyster has located a hand-
ful of references in chroniclesin particular, one which makes mention of
Castilian court festivities at Janon which such tapestries were displayed
and for which the presence of allies and visitors from the Nasrid court is
documented. Although Christian importations and appropriations of tex-
tiles and other luxury goods from Islamic contexts have been the focus of
much recent scholarship, the reverse process has rarely been considered.
Luysters essay, thus, opens the door onto new interpretive explorations of
the interchange, appropriation, adaptation and interpretation of luxury
goods from other contexts in the late medieval and Mediterranean world.
Departing from the gure of the Wild Man as a common motif in both
the visual and the literary arts of medieval Iberia, Simone Pinet details the
large variety of meanings and narrative possibilities which this gure, when
placed in dierent contexts, might suggest, proposing its use as a common-
place. For an articulation of its meaning through context, the Wild Man
of the Hall of Justice ceilings is then read together with other elements
of the compositionthe knight, the lady, the lion, the contrasting hunt-
ing scenesthat suggest a variety of interpretations which may at times
exist in contradiction with one another, depending on the narrative ele-
ments being considered. In light of the multiple narrative possibilities and
the numerous discourses that can be addressed through these common-
places, Pinet suggests the lateral ceilings may function as pretexts for nar-
ration of a literary and/or juridical nature, an improvisatory pedagogical
and political exercise suggested by the central painting, and consistent with
the overall function of the building as a madrasa, as proposed by Ruiz Souza.
Oscar Martn examines the ways that allegorywhich he argues to be
deployed in the Alhambra ceilings particularly through the depiction of
animals and the representation of spaceis essential to the negotiation of
meaning in the paintings: its particular task in this case is that of extolling
the use of restraint in a judicial frame. Martn carefully explores the use of
allegory in sentimental ction in Castile, which has its origins in the same
traditions of courtly love that inspired the Hall of Justice images, in order
to detail the ways that spatiality, in particular, works simultaneously to
weave together distinct traditions of courtly love, oering diering evalu-
ations of the cultures allegory serves to articulate, and to mark allegorys
limitations and eventual failure, together with that of the courtly values it
buttressed. While the historical moment at which allegory is employed in
the Hall of Justice ceilingsunlike those that witnessed the production of
some of the later examples he considersis still largely open to its struc-
turing function as a form of cultural adaptation, Martn argues that it
might also be possible to identify certain cracks in the courtly code rep-
resented elsewhere in the Nasrid image program.
Please note that whenever there is a reference to an Illustration in an article

in this issue, this is a reference to the illustrations in the color section at the
end of this issue.
Medieval
Encounters
Arthur in the Alhambra?

Narrative and Nasrid Courtly Self-Fashioning
in The Hall Of Justice Ceiling Paintings
Cynthia Robinson
Department of Art History and Visual Culture, GM08 Goldwin Smith Hall,
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
Abstract
This essay reconsiders the Arthurian identication of a number of the scenes that com-
pose the ornamental program of the painted ceilings above the northern and southern
alcobas of the Alhambras Hall of Justice, proposing a reading that privileges Castilian ver-
sions of well-known courtly romances over French ones. The scenes are read as representa-
tions of the stories of Flores y Blancaor, as well as Tristn de Leons. Both tales, however,
have been further altered and adapted in order to privilege the ideological concerns of the
Nasrid court, both as an Islamic political entity with an agenda of jihd andin a fashion
that could easily be viewed as contradictoryas a participant in medieval Iberias much-
discussed frontier culture, which involved a marriage of convenience with Castilian
allies.
Keywords
Arthurian iconography, Floire et Blancheeur, Tristan and Isolde
The courtly themes and Christian style of the paintings atop the north-
ern- and southern-most of the three shallow alcoves that compose the so-
called Hall of Justice of the Alhambras Palace of the Lions have led scholars
to assume their incomprehensibility both to their original audience and
their patrons (Illustrations 6 and 13). Valrie Gonzles, for example, states
that their removal or disappearance would not change the palaces aesthetic
or iconographic message in the slightest.1 This essay, however, together
1
Jess Bermdez Pareja, Pinturas sobre piel en la Alhambra de Granada, Publicaciones
del Patronato de la Alhambra; 1 (Granada: Patronato de la Alhambra y Generalife, 1987);
Jerrilynn D. Dodds, Paintings in the Hall of Justice of the Alhambra: iconography and
C. Robinson / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 164-198 165 [13]
with the others that form this collection, intends to demonstrate that the
paintings are both an integral and a fully integrated part of the program of
signication of the structure they adorn. Moreover, as I will argue, it is in
their iconography rather than in their style that the key to their impor-
tance is found. The motifs on the ceilings contain a multiplicity of mean-
ings which both communicate a coherent narrative with a social message
tailor-made to Nasrid interests, and exist in direct relationship to the pal-
aces larger program of signication.2
Assumptions concerning the paintings Otherness to the palaces larger
Islamic ornamental discourse have lead to the identication of icono-
graphic sources whose meaning, absurdly, must rst be eaced before their
incorporation into the Nasrid palaces system of signication may be per-
mitted. Dodds, for example, whose article still serves as a point of depar-
ture for all other scholars taking up the topic, singles out seven
independent . . . centers of action, six of which she identies as belonging
to the Arthurian cycle. Examples of these include the Tryst Beneath the
Tree (Illustration 7) from the French version(s) of Tristan and Isolde,
which Dodds sees (mistakenly, I believe) as having been conated or con-
fused with the Fountain of Youth;3 a Wild Man who, having captured
a Lady, is being attacked by a Christian knight (identied by Dodds as a
iconology, The Art Bulletin v. 61 (June 1979), 186-197; Valrie Gonzalez, Beauty and
Islam: aesthetics in Islamic art and architecture (London; New York: I.B. Tauris in association
with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London; New York: Distributed in the USA by
St. Martins Press, 2001), 47; Oleg Grabar, The Alhambra (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1978), pp. 79-83; Angus Mackay, Religion, Culture, and Ideology in Late
Medieval Castilian-Grenadine Frontier Societies, in Robert Bartlett and Angus MacKay,
eds., Medieval Frontier Societies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 222-224.
2
This article also serves as the prelude to a monographic study which will seek to fully
assess the Alhambra within its cultural context[s]the Nasrid court, the Iberian Peninsula
and the Islamic and Mediterranean world[s] during the late fourteenth and early fteenth
centuries.
3
Rather than a misunderstanding of the iconography of the Fountain of Youth theme,
the gures which Dodds (191) refers to as little naked people swimming are in fact cary-
atids who hold up the upper basin of the fountain in question. The topos of a marble
fountain with mimetic or lifelike sculptures of human gures, while it may at rst glance
seem quintessentially European or Western, was in fact of interest to Nasrid poets who
almost certainly composed and/or dedicated some of their verses in the Palace of the Lions
itself. This issue, along with the interesting perspective on attitudes toward mimesis in
Nasrid culture which it oers us, will be treated in Cynthia Robinson, Toward a Poetics of
Ornament in Granadas Alhambra: Allegorizing Metaphor, for a festschrift in honor of
Oleg Grabars eightieth birthday. Edited by Gulru Necipoglu; to be published in 2008.
[14] 166 C. Robinson / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 164-198
misunderstanding of an episode from the Galahad cycle); and the addi-

tion of a lion to the same scene which, for Dodds, signals a misreading
of Lancelots incident at the Bridge of Swords.4 (Illustrations 13 and 15)
On the basis of comparison with slightly earlier ivory caskets produced in
France (probably in Paris), Dodds attributes the choice of iconography to
the designers, and implicitly the patrons, knowledge of and interest in the
French fourteenth-century tradition [of Arthurian imagery]. This knowl-
edge, though, was imperfect, for it led to the muddling and confusing of
the scenes, if one takesas Dodds has donethe published French ver-
sions of these narratives as canonical.
My own research, however, led me very quickly to question the estab-
lishment of too direct and causal a connection between the French versions
of Arthurian taleswhether textual, oral or visualand the ceilings.
Despite the fact that French ivories such as those proposed by Dodds as
sources for the images are not to be found in Castile today, it is certainly
possible that similar, easily transported luxury objects5 were involved in the
inspiration for the programs production. Nevertheless, as has clearly
emerged from the conference presentations, conversations and inter-
changes of views that have led to the publication of this collection, both
Castilian and Aragonese courts suggest much more likely paths through
which such imagery might have reached the Nasrid court.6 The frescoes at
the castle-fortress of Alcaiz, which belonged to the Order of Calatrava, as
well as the image program of the Castilian Crnica Troyana, present such
striking iconographic and stylistic similarities to the Hall of Justice paint-
ings that, almost of necessity, they must be viewed as connected.
The likelihood of these connections, moreover, increases when one
takes into account the very specic historical and political circumstances
that linked both these contexts to the Nasrid court. In terms of Alcaiz,
the few scholars who have concerned themselves with the frescoes concur,
4
Dodds, Paintings in the Hall of Justice, 191-194.
5
A wide variety of possibilities are found in Michael Camille, The Medieval Art of
Love: objects and subjects of desire (London: Laurence King, 1998) and Roger Sherman
Loomis, Arthurian legends in medieval art, Part II in collaboration with Laura Hibbard
Loomis (London: Oxford University Press; New York, NY: Modern Language Association
of America, 1938).
6
Particularly relevant to this question is the contribution of Rosa Rodrguez Porto in the
present volume. I take the present opportunity to thank her for the many pertinent com-
ments and interesting references she has sent my way throughout the process of preparing
both conference sessions and volume.
for the most part, in dating them to circa 1360.7 At that time, the Maestre
de Calatrava was none other than Diego Garca de Padilla, brother of
Mara de Padilla, the infamous consort of Pedro I, and a great favorite of
the king himself. He was also the nephew of the paintings patron. In the
case of the Castilian court during the reign of Pedro I, as discussed both in
the introduction to the present collection and in several of the individual
essays, relations with Granada were complex, often amicable and sustained.
Thus, in my opinion, the Mudjar artisan theory oered by Dodds in her
1979 publication (Muhammad V would have borrowed Mudjar paint-
ers from Pedro I for the production of the painting cycle in the Christian
style he desired, but the painters would ultimately misunderstand the
iconography and the stories because they themselves were converted Mus-
lims), in addition to being impossible to demonstrate, signicantly over-
complicates the matter. All that is required to explain the appropriation of
such imagery by Muhammad V and those in his employ is knowledge of
these alliances and family relationships.
With these considerations in mind, it appeared to me that, if the style
and iconography of the images could be traced to sources closer to home
than France, it was likely that the same would be true of any narratives to
which they might be related. At the very least, these latter would have been
ltered, as were the images, through the Castilian or Aragonese lens of
interpretation before making their way to Granada. And, in eect, this is
the interpretation I propose. I believe that at least two narratives are
invoked by the Hall of Justice image cycles. First is a Spanish version of
Tristan and Isolde (hereafter TI ) which would, at some point in the fteenth
century, solidify into the group of texts known today as Tristn de Leons.8
Strong arguments exist in favor of TI s dissemination in Catalua, Portu-
gal and Castile by the end of the twelfth century, in diering versions
which almost certainly arrived independently of one another. In Castile, it
7
See Jos Antonio Benavente Serrano, El castillo de Alcaiz Teruel: Taller de Arqueologa
de Alcaiz; Instituto de Estudios Turolenses; Excma. Diputacin Provincial de Teruel,
1995) and Jos Flix Mndez, Las Pinturas murales gticas del Castillo de Alcaiz: restaura-
cin 2004 (Zaragoza: Gobierno de Aragn, 2004).
8
On the dating and circumstances of the introduction of TI into Castile, along with
other narratives related to the Arthurian cycle, see Mara Luzdivina Cuesta Torre, Aventuras
amorosas y caballerescas en las novelas de Tristn (Madrid: Universidad de Len, Secretariado
de Publicaciones, 1994), esp. 27-31, with extensive bibliography tracing the controversy,
and Jos Mara Via Liste, Textos medievales de caballeras (Madrid: Ctedra, 1993),
esp. 31-58.
is likely that the story would have been told in a fashion more similar to
the early fourteenth-century Italian renditions of TI than to the better-
known French versions.9 Although it is at present impossible to determine
exactly which elements of the tale were known in Castile at the time of the
paintings production and in what combination, references to the lovers
are common in Castilian literature as early as rst years of the thirteenth
century.10 It is thus certain that TI was known to Muhammad Vs Castilian
allies in some form or other.
Second is Floire et Blancheeur, known in the Iberian Peninsula as Flores
y Blancaor (hereafter FBF ).11 By the moment of the ceilings execution in
the middle decades of the fourteenth century, FBF had already enjoyed
several centuries of renown in the Iberian Peninsula. Basing her conclu-
sions on BNM Ms.7583, a late-fourteenth or very early fteenth-century
copy of Alfonso Xs Historia General de Espaa (hereafter HGE ), to which
we will return often and in detail in the following pages, Grieve opines that
the version known in Iberia was much more to the culture that received it
than a simple tale of love. In light of Grieves research, moreover, it now
seems possible that the earliest manifestations of at least one branch of
the tradition may be traced, not, as has always been assumed, to France,
but to Iberia, to another moment of intense concern with issues such as
cultural conict, assimilation, appropriation, and conversionthe ninth
century. The tale as it is preserved in BNM Ms. 7583 is interwoven
with historical information, in large part accurate, concerning both the
Christian and Muslim political entities of the Iberian Peninsula. FBF s
connections to the Carolingian cycle, likewise, resonated with Castilian
royaltys attempts to establish and then proclaim genetic links to Charle-
magne, his ancestors and his progeny.12 Research by Grieve, as well as by
9
Cuesta Torre, Aventuras amorosas, 256-257; 260-262.
10
Cuesta Torre, Aventuras amorosas, 27-31.
11
See Patricia E. Grieve, Floire and Blancheor and the European romance (Cambridge;
New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
12
The slightly later El Abencerraje y la Bella Jarifa (ABJ ) also ts well with the images,
and it is certainly no coincidence that scholars have, for decades, considered the possibility
that ABJ derives, in some way, from the Carolingian cycle to be a very serious one. The
possibility, as well as its implications for the Hall of Justice paintings, merits further inves-
tigation. El Abencerraje y la hermosa Jarifa, con introduccin, bibliografa, texto ntegro y
llamadas de atencin, documentos y orientaciones para el estudio a cargo de Vctor de
Lama y Emilio Peral Vega (Madrid: Castalia, 2000); El Abencerraje: (novela y romancero),
edicin de Francisco Lpez Estrada (Madrid: Ctedra, 1985), esp. 33-40.
Ins Fernndez Ordez, demonstrates that FBF was treatedin Castile,

at any rate, and like most of the Charlemagne group to which it also
belongsas history.13 Fernndez Ordez links the incorporation of the
Carolingian cycle, particularly the deeds of Carlos Mainete, to the histori-
cal compilations carried out under the supervision of Rodrigo Ximnez
de Rada, and demonstrates that, far from being inventions of the Arch-
bishop of Toledo, they almost certainly proceed from the Latin sources
he had at his disposal. BNM Ms. 7583 makes reference to aquel linaje
que vinieron Flores y Blancaor los mucho enamorados (that lineage from
which came Flores and Blancaor, the very much in love; f. 5v). Earlier
references which clearly link the lovers and their daughter, Berta, to the
lineage of French royalty are, likewise, found in the Liber Regum,14 and this
same information is later used by Ximnez de Rada in his rendition of the
genealogy of Iberian Christian kings. Similarly, Grieve traces the system-
atic deployment of FBF in a Castilian context as Christianizing propa-
ganda, as witnessed by its careful interpolation into the fabric of Castilian
chronicles, mentioned earlier. Indeed, the tale, as told in the version con-
tained in BNM 7583, becomes a projection of Castilian royal identity. It
is therefore, as shall be seen in the conclusion, open to interpretation by
others as well.
Also of interest for the purposes of the present essay is the strong possi-
bility that the tale, in at least some of its versions, has Arabic origins. At the
very least it would seem that it developed in conjunction with other, similar
tales which were demonstrably widespread throughout the Arabic-speaking
worlda world which, of course, included much of the Iberian Peninsula,
and extended into and overlapped with this Peninsulas Romance-speaking
regions as well.15 Arabic origins, at any rate, are proposed for FBF in the
13
See Grieve, Floire and Blancheor, and Ins Fernndez Ordez, El ciclo pico-
legendario de Carlos Mainete y la transformacin de la historiografa medieval hispnica
en los siglos XIII-XIV, in J.-P. Genet, ed., LHistoire et les noveaux publics dans lEurope
mdivale (XIII e-X ve sicles), (Paris: Publications de La Sorbonne, 1997), 89-112. Many
thanks, again, to Rosa Rodrguez Porto, both for this reference and for those contained in
the following note.
14
See Louis Cooper, El Liber Regum. Estudio lingstico (Zaragoza: Institucin Fern-
ando el Catlico, 1960), 39 (f. 19r of the original ms.), in the context of a discussion of the
lineage of the kings of France.
15
Convincing arguments for FBF s Arabic origins are made, for example, in Ulrich
Marzolph and Richard van Leeuwen, eds., The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia; with the col-
laboration of Hassan Wassouf, 2 v. (Santa Barbara, CA, 2004), I, 314, and II, 551-552,
version of the tale known to Alfonso X, and it is therefore likely that

Pedro Is court would have been under a similar impression. We are even
told that Flores and Blancaor were students of that language. In a passage
from BNM 7583, we read:
And according to Sigiberto, a wise man who translated this story of the Deeds of Flores and
Blancaor from Arabic says that these two children had such discerning minds and an
aptitude for learning that in six years they learned logic, and to speak in Latin as well as
in Arabic. And they wrote love poems in Latin, in which they both took great pleas-
ure . . . And Sigibert, a wise man who composed this story in Arabic, says . . . (BNM Ms.
7583, . 9r-10r) (emphasis mine).16
Although the manuscript contains contradictory statements concerning

the exact activity performed by Sigiberto (whether that of translator or
author), there seems to be little doubt of the origins attributed to it in a
Castilian context. Likewise, emphasis is given to the multi-cultural and
multi-lingual context in which the principle characters liveddetails
which, by the way, are absent from French versions of the tale:
where extensive further bibliography concerning the debate is found. Antonio Pioletti (La
fatica damore: sulla ricezione del Floire et Blancheeur (Messina: Rubbettino, 1992),
32-37), for his part, largely downplays oriental input into the process of the tales consolida-
tion, though he does acknowledge the striking resonances it exhibits with Eastern stories
and tales, in addition to the Greek, Latin and French models with which he is clearly more
comfortable. As I have suggested elsewhere, I believe FBF, or perhaps more generally the
roman idyllique, to have been an important inuence in the adaptation of a rather run-of-
the-mill Abbasid slave-girl story with cautionary intent into a the romance, Hadth Bayd
wa Riyd, illustrated in al-Andalus almost certainly during the rst two decades or so of
the thirteenth century. See Cynthia Robinson, Re-Writing Genre: The Hadth Bayd wa
Riyd and Mediterranean Courtly Narrative in the 13th Century, in F. Bauden, A. Gher-
setti and A. Chrabi, eds., The Arab Story (Lige, forthcoming 2008) and eadem, Medieval
Andalusian Courtly Culture: Hadth Bayd wa Riyd (London: Routledge, 2007). A recent
article by Olivia Remie Constable also makes clear that the repertoire of stories on which
members of Alfonso Xs court could draw was both broad and multi-lingual; see her Chess
and Courtly Culture in Medieval Castile: The Libro de Ajedrez of Alfonso X, el Sabio,
Speculum 82 (2007), 301-347.
16
Et segunt cuenta Sigiberto, un sabio que saco esta estoria del fecho de ores y de
Blancaor de aravigo diz que tan sotil engenio avien estos nios en aprender que en seys
aos aprendieron fablar en logica y fablar en latyn tanto como en aravigo. Et en latyn
escrivien versos de amor en que tomavan amos muy grand plazer . . . Et dize Sigiberto un
sabio q escrivio esta estoria en aravigo . . . (BNM Ms. 7583, . 9r-10r) (emphasis mine).
The Countess Berta spoke French and the Queen Arabic, and each one taught her
language to the other . . . (BNM Ms. 7583, f. 7r).17
There may well be other stories up there on the ceiling, and this essay
does not pretend to pronounce the denitive word on the matter; rather,
it should be read as an invitation for discussion and dialogue, much as I
believe the images themselves were meant to function in the cosmopolitan
and multi-confessional context of Muhammad Vs court.18 And even with
respect to the narratives just mentioned, the Hall of Justice images evi-
dence important discrepancies. Indeed, rather than faithful reections of
the scene-by-scene contents of a particular text or texts, each individual
scene appears to be an emblematic summation of several narrative moments,
in some cases seemingly out of narrative order (if we take a particular text
as our guideline, that is). A useful term for their description might, in fact,
be iconeme, coined by James Rushing in his assessment of slightly earlier
narrative cycles representing the romance of Yvein in the German castles of
Runkelstein and Rottenegg.19 As in the examples studied by Rushing, the
iconography chosen for the Hall of Justice ceilings appears to be deliber-
ately general: a castle and a fountain; two lovers meeting beside a fountain;
a chess game between lovers; a joust observed by a Lady and her maid from
the windows of a castle, all common elements to just about any romance
narrative one might name.20
Certain of the scenes, however, are also given narrative specicity by the
addition of unmistakable details associated with a particular story. In the
rst scene,21 for example (Illustrations 6 and 8), a twig in the hand of
the young man appearing in the left doorway of the palace signals his iden-
tity as Tristn: he is about to place it in the burbling stream at his feet, from
whence it will oat into Isoldas chambers and signal to her that she should
meet her beloved at the fountain in King Marks garden, which she will do
17
La condessa berta fablava franes y la reyna algaravia y una a otra se mostravan su
lenguaje . . . (BNM Ms. 7583, f. 7r).
18
Useful introductions to Nasrid court, intellectual, political and economic culture are
found in the essays that make up Manuel Barrios Aguilera and Rafael G. Peinado Santaella,
eds., Historia del Reino de Granada, 3 v. (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2002).
19
James Rushing, Images of adventure: Ywain in the visual arts (Philadelphia, PA: Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania Press, 1995).
20
Many thanks to Simone Pinet for her continued and lively discussion of this point.
21
First, that is, according to my reading of the overall program. See the following
section.
on the opposite side of the ceiling (Illustrations 6 and 7). At the same time,
an ostentatious cup or vessel (Illustration 6) perched atop the building in
question signals that the tale to be told may also be interpreted as FBF: the
cup was given to King Fines in exchange for Blancaor when she was sold
to the merchants who would eventually sell her again once they reached
parts further east. Likewise, in the nal scene (Illustration 16), the three
doves emblazoned on the wounded Christian riders shield identify him as
Tristns arch-rival, Palomades and, in so doing, as shall be discussed in
detail in the conclusion, oer a key piece to the puzzle of the frescoes
overall interpretation.22
The fact that no precise textual source is available for the Hall of Justice
paintings, indeed, poses no problem for the relationship between stories
and images proposed here. As demonstrated in numerous recently pub-
lished studies, individual narrative units or segments of well-known
romances and moralizing tales often traveled independently of one another
and in a great variety of combinations, both in textual and visual form.
They were subject to signicant re-writings and revisions, particularly in
the case of the endings, which were frequently tailored in order to send a
moralizing or socially relevant message to a target audience.23 Similarly, art
historian C. Jean Campbell analyzes interpretations of the stories of the
Prodigal Son, the Bathhouse Romance, and Phyllis and Aristotle present in
the ornamentation of a complex of rooms located in the Palazzo Publico of
San Gimignano, executed during the nal years of the thirteenth century
or the very rst ones of the fourteenth.24 Highlighting the inherent the-
matic anities already extant between the three talesthe deception and
wiles of women, and the unfortunate results of this with respect to ones
22
In most of the contexts in which it appears in Castile, the pagan caballeros name is
spelled Palomades rather than Palomedes. See Cuesta Torre, Aventuras Amorosas, 85-90;
arguments in favor of this identication based on the three doves will be detailed in the
conclusion to this essay.
23
See, for example, Ferdinando Bologna, Il sotto della Sala magna allo Steri di Palermo
e la cultura feudale siciliana nellautunno del Medioevo (Palermo: S.F. Flaccovio, 1975);
Grard J. Brault, Le Coret de Vannes et la lgende de Tristan au XIIIe sicle, in Mlanges
Oerts a Rita Lejeune, professeur lUniversit de Lige, 2 vols. (Gembloux: J. Duculot,
1969), I, 653-668; Michael Curschmann, Images of Tristan, in A. Stevens and R. Wisby,
eds., Gottfried von Strassburg and the Medieval Tristan Legend: Papers from an Anglo-North
America Symposium (London: Boydell & Brewer, 1990), 1-17; Pioletti, La fatica damore;
Rushing, Images of adventure.
24
C. Jean Campbell, The game of courting and the art of the commune of San Gimignano,
1290-1320 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997).
reputation and ones pocketbookCampbell believes the stories were

deployed at San Gimignano specically for the instruction and admonish-
ment of the podest of the commune, given that their moralizing tone is in
tune with the ethics that informed the construction of the ideal persona
for this latter.
Furthermore, and of particular interest to our project here, Campbell
acknowledges the use of French ivories of the sort Dodds relates to the
Alhambra ceilings as source material for the images; in this case, however,
their presence is documented in the context in question.25 She also rejects
the contentions of earlier scholarship which read the Prodigal Son and
Bathhouse Romance cycles as simple illustrations, representations, or visual
translations of tales by Boccaccio. Rather, describing the increments
out of which both visual and textual narratives are constructed as (implic-
itly interchangeable, collapsible, replaceable, sum-up-able, expandable or
expendable) building blocks,26 she proposes that it is not necessary to
associate these visual renditions of well-known narratives with any particu-
lar textual version of them. Moreover, it is not even necessary to posit the
existence of the particular textual version that would match up exactly with
the program of images. Instead, Campbell views the visual narrative as
viable on its own terms, particularly given our knowledge of the wide-
spread taste for the stories in question. Furthermore, it is possible that the
San Gimignano visual cycles and others like them may even have contrib-
uted toward the development and dissemination of these stories. Indeed,
the patrons and painters knowledge and manipulation of the general
thrust of the story (of its key moments or iconemes) may not have come
from any text at all.
That, in essence, is the way I believe we should approach the images on
the ceiling of the Hall of Justice. Rather than incomprehension or confu-
sion, these paintings represent sophisticated rewritings of TI and FBF
perhaps undertaken on the basis of oral knowledge of the stories in
question, with no textual mediation whatsoeverin order to deliver a
message consonant with the goals of self-presentation of the Nasrid court,
one which will be decoded in detail in the nal section of this essay. Mara
Luzdivina Cuesta Torre notes that the Castilian version of TIand in this
characteristic it evidences important dierences with the Frenchis at
25
See Campbell, Game of Courting, 120-160; eadem, Courting, Harlotry and the Art
of Gothic Ivory Carving, Gesta 34 (1995), 11-19.
26
Campbell, Game of Courting, 126-146.
least as interested in bravery in war and fechos de armas (deeds of war) as it

is in love.27 Similarly, while both stories are best known for their privileg-
ing of love above all, their interpretation by Nasrid patrons and audiences,
as will be demonstrated, placed signicant emphasis on themes of loyalty
and betrayal among allies, an issue of critical real time importance in the
frontier context which often mediated the relationship between Castilian
and Grenadine courts.
Before oering my own interpretation of the frescoes based on the nar-
ratives I have proposed as their sources, I would like to address their much-
touted confusion. As was noted in the introduction, Dodds, whose article
has been the point of reference for all further forays into the subject of the
ceilings iconography for more than twenty-ve years,28 departs from the
hermeneutic premise of the ceilings essential incomprehensibility. A care-
ful description of the programmatic disposition of the images on the two
courtly ceilings, however, dispels any impression of confusion and reveals
the use of a clear and systematic organization based on two scales, each
with its own register of signication. If, as I believe to be at least arguable,
given culturally ingrained tendencies to search for the starting points of
things according to the manner in which one is accustomed to read, it is
correct to assume a right-to-left reading of the program, one would start in
the north, which is where I will begin (Illustration 6). An east-west axis is
dened by the two fountains, rendered in the same scale; both are centrally
and symmetrically positioned and thus exist in clear visual and conceptual
dialogue.29 (Illustrations 6-8) The hunting scenes at each of the short ends
of the oblong dene a north-south axis; they are also rendered in a consist-
ent (and larger) scale (Illustrations 6 and 9-12). This distinction in scale
which has proved so disconcerting to scholars, however, is neither a mis-
take nor an indication of the inherent lack of comfort felt by Mudjar
artisans when faced with the exigencies of a Western system of distance
representation and perhaps even nascent perspective. Indeed, far from
creating confusion, it serves to distinguish the narrative scenes from the
more emblematic, or perhaps allegorical, categories of hunting and tribute
imagery.
27
Cuesta Torre, Aventuras amorosas, 68-69.
28
Dodds, Paintings in the Hall of Justice.
29
Dodds, Paintings in the Hall of Justice, 191, also describes the principal narrative
scenes as being visually punctuated by hunting gures . . . represented in a much larger
scale than the gures of the rest of the vaults. We draw, however, dierent conclusions.
The rst fountain is tri-level and has a square basin on its lowest tier. It
is ornamented with elegant columns, lions heads, and, at its very top, a
diminutive dog sporting a golden collar from whose mouth spouts forth a
copious stream of water (Illustrations 6 and 8). A plethora of multicolored
water birdsprobably ducksfrolic in the water contained in the lower
basin, which spills its excess over into a river or channel, where a number
of ducks swim happily. This fountain is set directly in front of a round
castle, possibly a tower, with double doors out of (or perhaps into) each of
which appears (or disappears) a youthful gure, male on the left and female
on the right; each raises a hand in a gesture either of greeting or of adieu
(Illustration 8). In his second hand, the male gure holds a twig which, as
noted earlier, I believe identies him as Tristn and which he is about to
place into the stream owing at his feet; the result will be the tryst with his
beloved shown on the opposite side of the ceiling (Illustration 7).30
On the balconies (atop one of which is found the large, jeweled vessel,
whichas indicated earlierI believe also identies the scenes as compos-
ing a version of FBF ) are two couples (Illustration 8). Each couple is
formed by a mature man, so identied by his beard and clothing, and an
elegantly attired woman. They gesture as they contemplate the surround-
ing woods and gardenin one case, the woman appears to speak, while in
the other the man appears, as it were, to be having the last word. The man
and woman positioned above the young man direct their gazes and their
conversation toward something occurring in the garden below them, while
the couple above the young woman appear to be looking upward toward
the immediately contiguous, bird-lled tree (Illustration 6). Both palace
entrances are marked with the arms of the Order of the Band, La Orden
de la Banda,31 whose connections to the Alhambra in general and to these
paintings in particular have been thoroughly researched and presented in
an essay in the this issue by Ana Echevarra. The order was a chivalric soci-
ety founded by Alfonso XI of Castile; it has been long believed that both
Pedro I and Muhammad V were members.
In the opposite scene, identied by Dodds (and, with certain
qualications, by the present author, though I would stipulate that they
30
Many thanks to Linda Padhi, a student in my Looking at Love seminar during the
Spring of 2004 at Cornell University, for the diligent research necessary to identify twig,
and for her permission to make use of her ndings here.
31
As Ana Echevarrias essay in this collection demonstrates, the deployment of this her-
aldry in the Alhambra is actually quite a complex matter.
are Tristn and Isolda) as Tristan and Isolde at the infamous moment of
their Tryst Beneath the Tree, the fountain is also tri-level, ornamented
with elegant columns, and topped by a small dog (Illustrations 6 and 7).
Here, however, the dogs mouth is closed; thus, the surface of the water
contained in the octagonal basin at the fountains lowest level is smooth
and mirror-like. This basin, too, is ornamented with lions heads, but is
dierentiated from the rst by the ingeniously positioned, diminutive
nude women who, rather than swimming as suggested by Dodds,32 in fact
sustain, caryatid-like, the second basin, also octagonal, above their heads.33
A young male, dressed in a red cape similar to the dress worn by several of
the hunting gures in the surrounding scenes, gazes across the fountain at
a symmetrically placed, equally young and equally blonde maiden. She,
too, is dressed in a red outer garment that echoes the red owers of the
garland woven into her hair.
In addition to the central oval of golden stars that glitter against a scarlet
background, the north-south axis governing the northernmost of the
Alhambras courtly ceilings is marked, on one end, by the two-gure
group of a Christian knight (or a knight in Christian dress, at any rate)
spearing a rampant lion and, on the other, by a donkey or a mule, loaded
down with the prizes of the afternoons hunting expedition (Illustrations 6,
9, 11 and 12). The horsemen are preceded by several attendants who are
possibly, though not necessarily, intended to represent Muslims, toward
the tribute scene in which two caballerosthis time probably Christian
(although cross (cultural)-dressing among frontier dwellers, particularly on
festive or ritual court occasions, was also common, and must be born in
mind)34gallantly oer the results of their knightly labors to the same
Lady whose arm is grasped in the southernmost ceiling by the Wild Man.
32
See above, note 29.
33
For more on this fountain and its signicance to Nasrid aesthetic discourse as embod-
ied by the Palace of the Lions, see Robinson, Toward a Poetics of Ornament.
34
On the exchange of clothing between Christians and Muslims, particularly in the
context of court festivities, see El Abencerraje: (novela y romancero), edicin de Francisco
Lpez Estrada (Madrid: Ctedra, 1985), introduction; Angus Mackay, The ballad and the
frontier in late medieval Spain, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies III (1976), 15-30, and ibidem,
Religion, Culture, and Ideology, and Teresa Prez Higuera, Al-Andalus y Castilla: el arte
de una larga coexistencia, in Agustn Garca Simn, ed., Historia de una cultura, 4 vols.
(Valladolid: Consejera de Cultura y Turismo de la Junta de Castilla y Len, 1995), II, La
Singularidad de Castilla, 9-59.
In other words, the rst fountain is anked by two carefully balanced

scenes in which the same group of Lady-and-Attendants receives tribute
from, alternately, Christian and Muslim knights, whereas the second is
anked by two hunting scenes distributed according to similar principles.
Smaller gures, probably pages, aid in the nal kill of formidable beasts or
help to rustle potential prey out from among the dense underbrush. The
general direction in which the hunting activity, on both sides, appears to
move indicates that we are meant to begin our reading with the palace, and
nish with the Tryst scene.
Like its counterpart, the southernmost ceiling responds to a strictly
symmetrical system of organization, with its motifs disposed according to
two clearly dened axes (Illustration 13). Again, the two-scale system is in
operation, with the signicant exception of two instances to which I will
return at the end of this section. On the rst narrative side of the oval
ceilingso designated because the pairs of battling men and beasts appear
to converge from the margins of the chess scene toward that of the joust or
combat taking place before the proverbial Ladies in the Towerthat
system of division remains in place, but its boundaries are transgressed,
purposefully, on the other. In the rst scene we nd Tristn and Isolda
playing chess (here, again, I am in at least partial agreement with Dodds
conclusions although, as I have suggested, I do not believe this to be the
only possible identication) (Illustrations 13 and 14). The lovers sit cross-
legged on a striped textile. The blonde Lady, again, wears a garland of red
and white owers in her hair, while the young man, a small dog asleep on
the carpet by his side, appears to have begun the game without removing
his falconry sleeves.
Immediately behind the couple grows a tree, heavily populated by birds;
it bears what appear to be pinecones. The tree is, thus, dierentiated delib-
erately from those around it, for example, the g trees that ank the palace
immediately behind the garden perhaps implied by the tree; these are two
trees infallibly associated with the Garden of Love in the Italian tradi-
tion.35 Out of two windows placed in two symmetrical towers (the princi-
ple of symmetry appears to be of equal importance in this second ceiling)
peer the diminutive gures of a young man and a young woman. Again,
directly above the two gures watching from balconies, we nd the repre-
sentation of the arms of the Order of the Band.
35
Paul F. Watson, The garden of love in Tuscan art of the early Renaissance (Philadelphia,
PA: Art Alliance Press, 1979), 45-47.
Just opposite the chess-playing scene we nd the best-known icono-

graphic group of the entire ceiling complex (Illustrations 13, 15 and 19).
A diminutive maid bearing a large ivory comb in her hands hovers anx-
iously behind the now-familiar blonde Lady who, her hair adorned with its
habitual garland of owers, leans forward from a window, her hands
clasped together in a pleading gesture. In contrast to the strict separation
maintained on the rst ceiling between elements of the rst- and second-
scale registers, here the Ladys gaze and her gesture serve to establish a
connection to the two principle groups of gures that compose the hunt-
ing-and-jousting axis, namely the symmetrically-disposed groups of Chris-
tian and Muslim soldier, directly in front of her outstretched hands, and
the Christian soldier, Wild Man and Lady-With-A-Lion-On-A-Chain to
her left (Illustrations 13 and 15-17). The convergence of lances from both
gure groups further identies this as a focal point.
Also placed along the north-south axis are the hunting vignettes that
ank the chess-playing scene, centered this time on individual combats
between courtiers and, on one side, a wild boar, and, on the other, a stag
(Illustrations 13 and 16). The ritual, courtly tone of the hunt and subse-
quent presentation of its fruits in the rst ceiling has been subtly ratcheted
up here, and the intensity of the combat between man and beast takes on
other emblematic signicationsone might easily imagine these to be
ghts to the death. The Lady in the Tower is the same Lady we have already
encountered several times, both beside the fountain and receiving hunting
tribute in the northernmost ceiling, and she is also the same Lady who
calmly resists the advances of the Wild Man, all the while keeping the
docile lion on the other end of the chain she holds in her left hand under
control. She has presence of the mind to look out in order to meet the
viewers gaze, as though to request her or his (probably his) opinion or
interpretation of the events taking place, as though this were its culminat-
ing moment, the one at which not the images confusion, but their mean-
ings, both literal and allegorical, are unlocked (Illustrations 13 and 15).
These images are well suited to the telling of either of the two
narrativesTI and FBFwhich I have suggested are represented. As in the
case of the San Gimignano frescoes analyzed by Campbell, for the Hall of
Justice, stories with common and overlapping themes have been chosen. Fur-
thermore, we have evidence that a medieval Castilian public would have read
or heard these stories inter-textually. In the fourteenth-century chronicle ver-
sion of FBF contained in BNM Ms. 7583, Flores himself makes the connec-
tion as he decides that he must go in search of his vanished beloved:
And certainly I will be even more in the right by going to look for Blancaor than
Paries was in the great deeds he carried out for Elena, persisting until he got her, or
even Tiramo for Tibris, [or] Tristn for Yseo . . . (BNM Ms. 7583, f. 15 v) (emphasis
mine).36
Moreover, it is worth remembering that in the French poetic tradition,

Tristans mothers name is Blancheeur. This coincidence (or connection)
appears to get lost along the way to the Spanish rendition as it has come
down to us in written form, but we cannot be sure that it was not still alive
in the fourteenth century.
Given that we have been quoting Flores, I will continue with his story.
The rst scene (Illustrations 6 and 8), in which the cycles identication
with FBF is declared by the ornate cup displayed atop the palace roof, both
sums up information concerning the protagonists childhood and fore-
shadows (through the presence of the cup) signicant events to come. Both
childrens lineage is proclaimed noble through the presence of the sym-
metrical couples, and the setting is an idyllic one which corresponds to
literary descriptions of the palace of Flores father, King Fines, where the
two children spent their idyllic childhood.
The young Muslim prince and the daughter of the Christian countess
were educated together as equals in the palace gardens, learning the clas-
sics, Arabic, the composition of songs, and chess, and the second two
scenes both evoke this idyllic period in the protagonists lives and hint at
the conicts which will, rst, separate them and second, result in their
reunion. The fountain-tryst scene (Illustrations 6 and 7) may be read both
as evocative of the almost paradisiac setting in which the young people
were educated, and of their moment of realization of their mutual desire.
The water is rendered as still and undisturbed by jets of water spurting
from fountains, a detail signaled earlier, because the story here requires
that its audience imagine the protagonists seeing themselves and each other
reected in it. This is the visual rendition of a classic turning point in
medieval romance, a moment potentially enlightening, or potentially pre-
cipitating a giving-in to overindulgence in sensual delights. A similar refer-
ence, I believe, is made by the fountains statues, which would probably
carry the same message to both Christian and Muslim viewers, albeit this
36
Et ciertamente muy mayor derecho fare en ir buscar a blancaor que non zo paries
quantos fechos cometio por Elena y los acabo fasta que la ovo otrosi Tiramo por Tibris,
Tristan por yseo . . . (BNM Ms. 7583, f. 15 v) (emphasis mine).
might be achieved through slightly dierent communicative processes.

Christians might receive this message through the statues nudity, while Mus-
lims have a tradition of associatingin al-Andalus, at any raterealistic
or gural sculpture, particularly when placed on fountains, with the lower
realms of sensory (as opposed to intellectual) perception.37
The lovers are shown here as children or very young adolescents, delight-
ing in the beauties of Flores fathers garden, so vividly evoked in all ver-
sions of the narrative. Hunting and tribute scenes allegorize the activities
taking place as noble, courtly and proper, although there may also be some
commentary in the fauna on the margins, as discussed by Jennifer Borland
in her contribution to the present volume. The courtly rendering of tribute
to the Lady38 and her attendants by both Christian and Muslim courtiers,
however, assures viewers that everything is on the up and up and is prop-
erly courtlyboth groups, probably all members of the Order of the
Band, are performing their courtly duties properly (Illustrations 6, 9, 11
and 12).
The third, or chess, scene is similarly multivalent (Illustrations 13 and
14). It, like the fountain scene, alludes to the childrens education, as well
as to the ties of love and desire that unite them as young adults.39 It also
evokes the chess game between Flores and the Emirs (or, in the Castilian
version, the Kings; see below) gatekeeper which those familiar with the
narrative would know ultimately resulted in the latter obtaining the cup
for which Blancaor had been sold, and in Flores being smuggled into her
chambers at the bottom of an enormous basket of owers. The games
combative potential, in turn, also echoes the real combats taking place
on the ceiling, both those between men and animals in the second, larger
register, and the duel or joust underway between the Christian and Mus-
lim knight on the other side of the ceiling.
37
See Watson, The garden of love, 25-34; 52-60; Robinson, Towards a Poetics.
38
Edith Random Rogers, The perilous hunt: symbols in Hispanic and European balladry
(Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1980), 10-11, though there are at times
undertones of adultery which are absent here; 15-17 for discussion of the love-hunt alle-
gory, which the author qualies as rather rare in Spanish popular poetry; it is more typical
of artistic verse, whereas in the popular register the lady or girl is often converted, literally,
into a hare or a hind. This would appear to be in keeping with the paintings having been
informed, as I believe to be the case, by the upper registers of Castilian court culture.
39
Chess, as is well known, provides a very common metaphoric and allegorical eld for
the development of discourse concerning relationships between the sexes. See C. Jean
Campbell, Courting, Harlotry; Constable, Chess and Courtly Culture.
Despite the deniteness of the cup on top of the roof, when I rst began
to consider the possibility that these paintings might tell the story of FBF,
their failure to refer in any way to Flores quest in search of his beloved was
troublesome. In both the French courtly version of the tale and the one
contained in BNM Ms. 7583, once his mother admits that Blancaor is
not buried beneath the fantastical funerary monument beside which he
has just tried to end his life, Flores departs on a quest across oceans and
continents in order to nd his lost love. He, of course, eventually nds her
at the end of his journey, one during which he is always directed on to the
next destination by people who have identied Blancaor because she
looks so much like him. It turns out she is being held in slavery by an evil
Emir whose lascivious and perverted nature inspires him to imprison forty
maidens in a palace. In the French version, the Emir is inherently evil and
oriental: he plans to deower them one by one following a mysterious
ceremony involving a tree of love, and then to murder them a year or so
later once hes done with them.40
Here, however, the French and the Castilian narratives diverge, and it is
in this divergence that the explanation for the absence of the quest seg-
ment from the ceiling cycles is found. In BNM Ms. 7583, Flores, unlike
Floire, does not disguise himself as a merchant in order to undertake his
voyage (BNM Ms. 7583, f. 16 v);41 nor does he lodge, as Floire does, with
other merchants in what are almost certainly funduqs.42 Rather, Flores val-
ues are, like his fathers, those of courtliness and the code of ethics particu-
lar to the frontier.43 Flores is a young man of royal blood, an exemplary
soldier-prince at the head of his huestes (far from going incognito, he trav-
els accompanied by some 5,000 armed cavalleros). Moreover, he is a prince
in possession of castillos, and is granted even more castillos, not by an Emir,
the name used for his rival in the French courtly version (from whom
Floire receives no castillos), but by the Rey (King) of Babylon.
40
This, in fact, is a major point of dierence between the Castilian and French narra-
tives: the King of Babylon only kills the inhabitants of his harem if they turn out not to
be virgins.
41
Compare with Floire et Blancheeur, 31 .
42
On the institution of the funduq in the Mediterranean, see Olivia Remie Constable,
Housing the stranger in the Mediterranean world: lodging, trade, and travel in late antiquity
and the Middle Ages (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
43
Eg., BNM Ms. 7583: . . . era este nes ome mucho esforado en fecho de armas y
muy franco asu gente (f. 6r); This Fines was a man who exerted himself greatly in war-like
deeds and was very fair with those loyal to him.
Indeed, as suggested earlier, the narrative of Flores quest to rescue his

beloved as related in BNM Ms. 7583 converts the tale into something of a
frontier romance, a circumstance I consider key to the interpretation of the
nal, culminating scene of the Hall of Justice ceiling paintings. The
sequence of events in BNM Ms. 7583 through which Flores locates his
beloved and then goes about gaining access to her is not, as in the French
courtly version, a series of encounters in hotels and funduqs, but rather
the forging of a frontier alliance with the King of Babylon. It is the ties of
loyalty and obligation thus establishedto be detailed belowrather than
the pity felt by courtiers and eventually by the King himself for the con-
demned lovers (who, in the face of certain death, still persist in the
selessness of their love) that secures their survival. I agree with the exigu-
ous body of scholarship on these ceilings that this scene is key, but not
because it represents a Muslim killing (or perhaps just wounding) a Chris-
tian. Indeed, if read through the lens of the frontier concerns of FBF as it
is recorded in BNM Ms. 7583, that fact is incidental. According to the
narrative, the combat should theoretically be between two Muslims, but it
is only logical that, in the context of the Alhambra, a Christian should be
pitted against a Muslim. If we interpret the images according to the version
of the story contained in BNM Ms. 7583, moreover, at issue is not religion
but loyalty, a loyalty constructed according to a very specic code of fron-
tier ethics.
Geographical specicity is much greater in the Castilian than in the
courtly French version of the narrative. Blancaors destination, like
Blancheeurs, is Babylon, but BNM Ms. 7583 specically identies Baby-
lon as located in Egypt, and it is toward Egypt that Flores and his men sail
for fteen days, before nally arriving to that part of Asia belonging to the
Caliph of Egypt (BNM Ms. 7583, f. 18r). And in case readers are not sure
just exactly what a Caliph is, the authors oer clarication (this detail is
also absent from the French courtly version of FBF): Et galifa quiere
tanto dezir como apostoligo delos moros (and Caliph means something
like Apostle of the Moors). Once in Egypt, Flores and his men learn that,
indeed, the King of Babylon has bought Blancaor. A day or so further
along, they also learn that the King of Babylon has a few problems with his
seor, the Caliph of Egypt. Flores immediately understands that, as the son
of a king and thus the equal of the King of Babylon, he has been handed
the key to his conundrum. He determines to use this circumstance to his
advantage:
for, if they helped the King of Babylon against the Caliph, their dispute could be to
his advantage; he could come into his Lords good graces and perhaps, for this reason,
he would give him Blancaor (BNM Ms. 7583, f. 18r).44
There follows a discussion of the distribution of power among the Caliph

of Egypt and his subordinate kings. This detail, again, is absent from the
French courtly version of FBF, but it is imminently appropriate to the
crafting of FBF into a tale which would both entertain and edify an Iberian
frontier audience.
Counseled by his faithful tutor Gaydon and minister Gandifer, Flores
sends a letter to the King of Babylon. In it, he makes no mention of
Blancaor but, rather, introduces himself as the son of King Fines of Alm-
era la de Espaa and grandson of Ysca Miramomelin de Asia. Because
there was no war in his native region in which he might distinguish him-
self, he tells the King of Babylon, he has come with his ve thousand men
in search of a court where he might exercise and perfect his prowess in
fecho de armas (BNM Ms. 7583, f. 18v). He also condes to the King
that he has heard of his problems with the Caliph of Egypt, and suggests
a visit to the Kings court so that he may personally oer his assistance, and
also aprender maneras y buenas costumbres (learn manners and good hab-
its). In closing he requests the favor of a response.
A response is not long in coming, along with an invitation to Flores to
present himself at the court of the King of Babylon. Each man is favorably
impressed with the courtly habits and knowledge of the other, and they
quickly become inseparable companions and allies. The King even gives
him an enormous castle in which he may live and house (all of!) his men.
The palace, of course, also serves Flores as the perfect base of operation for
his true mission, of which the King of Babylon remains completely igno-
rant (BNM Ms. 7583, f. 19 r). Unlike the French courtly version of FBF,
in which a funduq serves as the setting for Floires meeting with Don
Daytes and his wife Licores, the couple who will prove his most valuable
allies in the recuperation of Blancaor, in BNM Ms. 7583, the setting for
their encounters and interchanges is the castle given by the King of Baby-
lon to Flores for the duration of his stay at his court. The couple, moreover,
are not innkeepers, but are referred to as caballeros del rey.
44
Ca ayudando ellos al rey de babilonia contra el galifa podrie venir el pleito a avenen-
ia a que podrie cobrar la graia de su seor y quiza que por esto que le darie ablanca or
(BNM Ms. 7583, f. 18r).
One day, the Infante Flores asked the King of Babylon to commend
to him some task with which he might serve him and demonstrate his
loyalty and his agility in fechos de armas (BNM Ms. 7583, f. 20 r). The
King responds with a frontier mission: Flores is to go and establish a fron-
tier (que fuessedes tener frontera) with the men responsible for his problems
with the Caliph andsince he has such a great desire to be of service
arrange matters so that the dispute is resolved. In exchange, the King
promises to give him anything he asks for. He then orders Flores to go with
his men aun castillo que avie en una montaa que era muy grande y muy
bueno y muy bien poblado y era frontero con aquellos enemigos del rey (to a
castle he had on a mountain which was very large and very good and very
well populated, and which was on the frontier with those enemies of the
kings) . . . (BNM Ms. 7583, f. 20 r).
The kings enemies bag of tricks, however, was far from empty. They
soon learned of Flores mission, and in order to foil it they concocted the
devious plan of sending a falsied letter to Flores in the Caliphs name,
assuring him that the matter was now resolved. They added that the
Caliph, now ready to pardon the king, requested that Flores inform him
that he should come to a castle some ve miles from Flores fortress, where
reconciliation would be formally eected (BNM Ms. 7583, f. 20 v). Flores
believed the letter to be authentic and forwarded it to his new seor who,
in turn, set out with poca compaia for the appointed meeting place.
The two allies met at Flores castle and left together for the Caliphs
court. The king went a bit ahead, and Flores and his men followed a cer-
tain distance behind him. Predictably, the king was ambushed by his
enemies, all members but one of his reduced entourage were killed and
the king was taken prisoner. From his prison, his enemies intended to
remove him to the Caliphs court, where he would be presented as a traitor.
The one survivor of the ambush hastened to bring the news to Flores,
while the unsuspecting perpetrators continued along their way in blissful
ignorance of what fate (and Flores) had in store for them. Flores returned
the favor of the ambush and subsequently rescued the King of Babylon,
untying his hands himself. This was extremely fortunate, state the authors
of BNM Ms. 7583, for soon thereafter he was discovered in Blancaors
chambers, et sealadamente la razon por que lo mas perdono [el Rey de Babi-
lonia] fue por esta acaeimiento que vos avemos dicho (and it is important to
note that the most important reason for the King of Babylons pardoning
of him was this event that we have just related; f. 21r).
Once the Caliph hears the news, he hastens to send one of his sons to
the court of the King of Babylon with an invitation for all concerned to
present themselves at his court in Cairo (BNM Ms. 7583, f. 21 v), where
festivities are organized, gifts exchanged, and loyalties further cemented.
The King of Babylon declares that Flores may retain his castle in Egypt for
the rest of his life. Following the festivities, however, Flores is overcome by
a sudden attack of nostalgia and mal de amores for his beloved (f. 22v) and
decides that the most noble thing he can now do is complete the mission
which had truly brought him to the Kings court, that of rescuing his
beloved. He knows that the moment has come when he hears of the lavish
plans being made by the King of Babylon for his wedding with Blancaor
(f. 25r-v). We then return to more familiar ground for those acquainted
with the French version of events: Flores, counseled by Gaydon and Gan-
difer, sets out to earn the trust and friendship of the King of Babylons
palace guard, and the rest, as they say, is history. Following a joyous reun-
ion with Blancaor, despite Claris best eorts, the lovers are discovered
and placed in prison to await their dismal fate, to be pronounced by the
king before the members of his court, who have all been summoned for a
few days hence.
Key for the interpretation of the paintings, I believe, are the numerous
folios dedicated to the narration of the debate which ensues once the cortes
of the King of Babylon have gotten underway (BNM Ms. 7583, f. 31 r .).
The account given is much more detailed than that found in the French
courtly version of the story, and is liberally sprinkled with asides that
seek to adapt the tale to its Iberian frontier context, an excellent example
of which is the following: Et almirales quiere tanto dezir como dizen en este
nro tienpo por los arrahenes que son adelantados de las ibdades mayores (And
admirals means something like the arrahenes who, in our own times, are
the adelantados of the most important cities; f. 31v).
Once his men are gathered in his palace, the king opens the proceedings
with a speech in which he makes public his great dismay, disappointment
and sense of betrayal (BNM Ms. 7583, . 31v-32r). Initially, his vassals
agreenot only have the lovers dishonored the king, but also the Caliph,
as well as each and every one of them. Flores and Blancaor are about to
be sent to their deaths when one of the vassals, a nobleman named Alfanges
(his cameo role is conned to BNM Ms. 7583; he does not appear in the
French courtly version of FBF ) asks to be informed about the kings
dispute with the Caliph (f. 32v), for it seems to him that there might be
mitigating questions of loyalty here. A long discussion ensues, at the end

of which it is decided that Gandifer and Gaydon should be allowed to take
the stand to speak in favor of their young master.
Gandifer begins his discourse by recounting Flores impeccable lineage,
noting his expertise in fecho de armas and maneras cortesanas, and prais-
ing his generosity. Flores, ends Gandifer triumphantly, comes from the
most noble lineage of all the reyes moros. Alarmed that the very concept
of justice is in danger, the Almiral Alfages then vehemently reclaims the
rights of the lovers to come and speak for themselves: non dexedes de los
oyr ca no[n] peresiera la justiia por y que queredes fazer . . . (do not fail to
listen to them, so that justice not perish because of that which you wish to
do; BNM Ms. 7583, f. 32v).
Gaydon, encouraged, kneels before the king and oers what is both a
discourse on the natures of justice and betrayal, and a plea that this case be
considered on the merits of its context and circumstances. Contrary to what
the king and many of the vassals believe, he states, Flores is no traitor, and
justice will not be done by the vassals agreeing to sending him to his death
simply in order to satisfy the kings whim. The infraction committed by
Flores is in fact of much lesser signicance than the king would have every-
one believe, for the girl, in eect, already belonged to him, since she was
owned by his father. Furthermore, continues Gaydon, Flores cannot by law
be deemed a traitor, for he has neither killed his lord nor entered into rebel-
lion against him, nor slept with his wifesince Blancaor was not yet the
King of Babylons wife, and given that she actually belongs to Flores father,
the third condition is in no way applicable here (f. 33 v). Gaydon then
chides the king for having forgotten all about these circumstances.
The king listens attentively, but is still lled with rage and a desire for
vengeance, so el Amiral Alfanges tries another angle:
My Lord King, you begged us to counsel you in the manner in which to judge them
according to the law, and you have heard the vassals, but you have not heard him, and
yet you wish to kill him without ever hearing him. No judgment can be correct if both
parts have not been heard . . . (BNM Ms. 7583, f. 35r).45
45
Seor rey vos nos rogastes que vos consejasemos como los judgassedes con derecho y
avedes oydo alos sus vasallos y no[n] oystes ael y queredes lo matar no[n] seyendo oydo y
ningun jyuzio no[n] puede ser derecho si amas las partes no[n] son oydas . . . (BNM Ms.
7583, f. 35r).
The Admiral again urges the king to send for the two lovers so that they
might speak before the court. His lord, states the Admiral, is then free to
send the Infante to his death if he wishes, but he must do so knowing that
the courts justicethat of allowing the accused to speak before the assem-
bled company of the corteshas been carried out, and that the verdict will
have been reached por derecho y no por voluntad (through law, and not by
will; BNM Ms. 7583, f. 35 v). Since the king still insists that the lovers be
beheaded, his alguacil, a man named Tener, now enraged, enters the debate,
warning that justice will not properly carried out. His lord, he continues, is
in danger of issuing a verdict mas con yra que no[n] por co[m]plir la justiia
(more out of anger than in order that justice be carried out).
The king angrily accuses Alfanges and Tener of pretending to have
greater knowledge of the law than he does, and of trying to shame him
before his court (BNM Ms. 7583, f. 36r). Just as things appear to be spiral-
ing completely out of control, Gandifer addresses the group concerning
the proper customs of great men and noble kings. These customs, he
says, include:
sending for all of his men and commanding them to present themselves in his court,
and to counsel him, and that that which should be done, be done with their counsel,
for the counsel of many is better and greater than that of one alone. And when all are
in agreement, the king may be sure that he is taking the best action . . . But since we
arrived at your court in your Majestys presence, and have been telling you that which
we believe to be correct, we believe that you should thank us for it (BNM Ms. 7583,
f. 36v).46
Finally (BNM Ms. 7583, f. 37r), the Admiral Alfanges requests that the
story of Flores service to the King of Babylon be recounted in its entirety
before the assembled group, in case anyone present has not heard it. Once
this has been done by Tener (f. 37v), it becomes apparent to the assem-
bled company that Flores would have to have committed a much graver
infraction than he has done in order to deserve the death to which the king
wishes to send him. Indeed, his bravery is to be commended, for he has
46
enbiar por todos los del su senorio y de fazer con ellos sus cortes y de gelo mostrar y
aquello que oviere de fazer que sea co[n] su consejo por que el consejo de muchos es mas y
major que de uno solo./Et quando todos son de un acuerdo es el rey seguro que faze lo
mejor . . . Otro si des que nos venimos a vuestra corte y a vra mered y voz dezimos aquello
que entendemos que es derecho tenemos que nos lo devedes gradeser (BNM Ms. 7583,
f. 36v).
placed his person in grave danger in order to rescue a captive, a deed of

courage which certainly resonated with an Iberian frontier audience, and
whose mention is absent from the French courtly version of the tale.
Furthermore, admonishes Tener, one of the things with which a sovereign
must take the greatest of care is in his treatment of vassals come from afar
to his court, noble men from other lands and other courts. He nishes
with a ourish, stating that they would all rather be taxed cruelly in order
to pay (literally) for the infraction that has been committed, rather than
have these two noble young lovers sent to their deaths in their names. The
king nally sees the reason in his vassals pleas for justice and the lovers are
pardoned and permitted to marry. He, for his part, will wed the faithful
Gloris, and will renounce his custom of keeping a well-stocked harem in
favor of monogamy (f. 38r).
One is reminded here of the ten seated noblemen of the central ceiling
which tops the alcove between the two courtly cycles of images (Illustra-
tions 1-5). All are dressed in Muslim garb, but given our knowledge of the
frequent cross-dressing that characterized frontier interactions,47 and tak-
ing into account the red beards and blue eyes of some of those present, it
is not too far a stretch to imagine Muhammad V convening his version of
the cortes (perhaps including other members of the Order of the Band)
used by his Castilian allies to eect justice in their kingdoms. Matters for
discussion would, logically, include questions of legality and loyalty in the
context of the frontier. In essence, there are good moros (or Christians)
and bad moros (or Christians), loyal ones who play by the frontier rules
and traitorous ones who do not. Similarly, the discussion and debate of
proper courtly behavior and ethics between frontier allies just recounted
appears appropriate to the Nasrids rejection of images documenting Flores
quest in favor of the nal, battle image at the moment of the cycles con-
ception and planning, for it, rather than images of adventure, encapsulates
the matters of greatest importance to the Nasrid court and its allies.
Therefore, if one reads the ceiling paintings as visual representations
of FBF, the nal scene sums up the moments and issues of the narrative
just evoked, specically as recounted in the version recorded in BNM
Ms. 7583 (Illustrations 13 and 15-19). The scene would represent, iconeme-
like, a conation of several dierent narrative moments, among them
Flores rescue of the king from his enemies, followed by his ultimate res-
cue of Blancaor who, attended by Gloris, looks down anxiously from
47
See above, note XX.
atop the tower of the harem in which the King of Babylon has imprisoned
her. The narrative eectively ends, however, with the battle scene rather
than with the lovers reunion or marriage, because its relevance to the Nas-
rid court and their allies was more rooted in the frontier ethics represented
by Flores interaction with the King of Babylon than in his love relation-
ship with Blancaor.
Dress being notoriously ambiguous along the frontier, I also believe that
it is possible to interpret this scene as representing a Nasrid twist on the
narrative which would have the properly-and-already Muslim Flores (in
other words, there was no need for conversion, given that the hero
was already of the right religion) killing, not the Christians, but the
bad Christians, dierent Christians from the Christians-Who-Are-Our-
Allies. As for the Wild Man, Lady and Lion combination, rendered in
the same larger scale as are the battling Muslim and Christian caballeros,
I will return to it in the conclusion, because its interpretation is the same
regardless of which of the two narrative possibilities is employed.
If we read the images as TI, the rst scene would, as in the case of FBF,
be a summing up of parts of the story deemed relevant by Nasrid patrons48
(Illustrations 6 and 8). The two couples above the principal gures might
represent, again as in our earlier reading of FBF, their parents. Likewise,
they might represent each of the protagonists in the company of his or her
lawful spouseIsolde with King Mark, and Tristn with Iseo de las
Blancas Manos (Isolde of the White Hands). Tristn, as observed earlier,
here holds the famous twig which he will place into the stream and which,
according to the story, oats round to the back of the palace and into Iso-
ldas chambers, in order to indicate to her that he will be waiting for her
later beside the fountain.
As has already been discussed, both Dodds and I identify the second
scene as the Tryst beneath the Tree (Illustrations 6 and 7). As also noted
by Dodds, whereas all other European renditions of this scene depict King
Marks face reected in the fountain between the lovershe observes them
from atop a tree, and it is this reection which alerts them to the necessity
to dissimulatein the Hall of Justice paintings King Mark is substituted
48
Tristn de Leons y el rey don Tristn el joven, su hijo: Sevilla, 1534, estudio preliminar,
edicin crtica y notas de Ma. Luzdivina Cuesta Torre (Mxico: Universidad Nacional
Autnoma de Mxico, Instituto de Investigaciones Filolgicas, 1997); Libro del esforado
cauallero Don Tristan de Leonis y de sus grandes fechos en armas (Valladolid, 1501) (Madrid:
V. Surez, 1912).
by the dwarf Frocin.49 His face, however, is not reected in the fountain;
rather, he is shown perched atop a tree, gazing up at the stars that tell him
so much. In the Castilian version of the story, the dwarf announces to
King Mark shortly prior to Tristns arrival at court that the one who will
come will triumph over him and, for all intents and purposes, render his
life unbearable, which is certainly one prophecy that comes true.50 For the
ceilings, for their patrons and for the Nasrids Castilian allies, moreover,
noble love is of the essence, and King Mark is hardly a noble lover. Tristan
is most denitely a noble lover, and certainly the nobler of the two men.
Therefore, it was decided to visually write Mark out entirely: as will be seen
shortly, Palomades was considered a much nobler rival for the hero.
Again, like Dodds but for dierent reasons, I identify the third scene as
Tristan and Isolde (or, Tristn and Isolda) Playing Chess51 (Illustrations 13
and 14). It is crucial to notealthough, as demonstrated by Curschmann
for the Tryst Beneath the Tree,52 it is not necessary that the motif s trans-
mission be accompanied by a text, for it frequently appears isolated from
any other segments of the narrativethat the only extant written versions
of the story that portray the lovers actually playing chess just before (and
in the latter case, just after) the drinking of the potion and its consequences
are the Italian and the Spanish.53 According to the Castilian version of TI,
Tristn and Isolda, having sipped of the brevaje during a game of chess in
which they were engaged, take one look at one another across the chess-
board, drop whatever pieces they were holding and descend as of one
mind to the chambers below decks, whereto paraphrase the textthey
did such a nd job of it that neither of them ever forgot it as long as they
49
As also noted by Dodds, Paintings in the Hall of Justice, 92-194. She, however,
interprets this is yet more evidence of the artists confusion with respect to the stories in
question whereas, as shall be explained in the following pages, I believe that the substitu-
tion has been deliberately made for a very specic reason.
50
Frocins predictions regarding coming disappointments and disgraces that will aect
the King are given great importance in Castilian versions of the tale; see E.G. Parodi, ed.,
Tristn de Leons y el rey don Tristn el joven, Libro del esforado cauallero Don Tristan de
Leonis, and Il Tristano riccardiano (Bologna: Romagnoli-dall Acqua, 1896).
51
Dodds, Paintings in the Hall of Justice.
52
Curschmann, Tryst.
53
Tristn de Leons y el rey don Tristn el joven; Libro del esforado cauallero Don Tristan
de Leonis. Interestingly, the scene also appears on the Silla de Alfbia (Alfbia Chair),
found in Mallorca and dated by Llompart to the earliest years of the fteenth century. See
Gabriel Llompart, La Silla de Alfbia y la material de Bretaa en la Mallorca de la Baja
Edad Media, Archivo Espaol de Arte LIX, no. 236 (1986), 353-362.
both lived. The ne job (lit., tan buena obra) nished and their heads
clear again, the lovers return to the chessboard in order to nish what they
had started.
On the Hall of Justice ceilings, however, the chess game is out of narra-
tive order. It should, according to both the Spanish version of TI and the
Italian one on which it is probably based, have occurred during the voyage
from Ireland to Wales. This ordering of the scenes is certainly deliberate.
The game of chess oers important parallels to the images of jousting,
hunting and battle with which it shares the ceiling. Another reason for its
placement might be that it is used to signify the repeated instances of the
tan buena obra which Tristn and Isolda, after the twigs have been
received and properly interpreted, thanks to their status as the most noble
lovers in all of myth and history, are entitled to carry out, regardless of the
social constrictions operative in other, more properly European contexts.
Other visual renditions of the motif often have something of a cautionary
air about them. Dodds notes, as justication for her identication of the
scene, an image of the chess game between the lovers found at the Palazzo
Chiaromonte in Palermo, which Loomis dates to 1377-1380;54 a similar
representation may be found in the Palazzo Steri, also in Palermo and also
dating to the late fourteenth century.55 It forms part of a large group of
tales represented on the wooden beams of the ceiling of a chamber des-
tined for the reception of guests, clients and allies. All narratives illustrated
are potentially courtly but, in this particular case, they are interpreted in
moralizing terms. Womens ckleness and duplicity receives a signicant
amount of attention; in this context, there is little doubt that an image
of Tristan and Isolde playing chess would have been interpreted as an allu-
sion to their sexual transgressions.56 In the Hall of Justice, however, there
is no indication of moralizing intentquite the opposite, in fact, if we
allow for the presence of FBF in the image cycles. In that tale, the sexual
54
Dodds, Paintings in the Hall of Justice, p. 193; Roger Sherman Loomis, Arthurian
legends in medieval art, Part II in collaboration with Laura Hibbard Loomis (London:
Oxford University Press; New York, NY: Modern Language Association of America, 1938),
61-62, citation apud Dodds.
55
Ferdinando Bologna, Il sotto della Sala magna allo Steri di Palermo e la cultura feudale
siciliana nellautunno del Medioevo (Palermo: S.F. Flaccovio, 1975), g. 16.
56
Several fourteenth-century ivory mirror covers produced in Paris which represent a
couple playing chessthrough the judicious placement of poles, falcons, garlands and
folds in the Ladys garmentsrender the topos almost lewd; see C. Jean Campbell, Court-
ing, Harlotry.
transgressions committed by the lovers are later revealed not to be trans-

gressions at all because of the already-extant relationship between the pro-
tagonists, who are rewarded with survival, marriage and elevated social
status.
As in the case of FBF, the nal, the culminating scene of the Hall of
Justice paintings contains the most radical of all Nasrid re-writings of
the tale of TI to serve their own purposes and tastes (Illustrations 13 and
15-19). The focus of the narrative has been tailored toand truncated
atthe conict over Isolda between Tristn and one in particular of his
rivals, the knight Palomades.57 Palomades, following their rst encounter
at the court of the Irish king, becomes the bane of Tristns existence, or
rather Tristn becomes the bane of Palomadesthis latter would, if it
were not for his rival, be the most noble caballero of all. Tristn, however,
is a much better caballero, and therefore he not only wins all the jousts but
also gets the girl, with whom poor Palomades is desperately, hopelessly in
love, so much so that at one point his desire gets the better of his nobility,
and he kidnaps her. Isolda, however, outsmarts him and takes refuge in a
tower, with Brangel (much as is seen in the Hall of Justice ceiling image),
from whence, after doing battle with Palomades, Tristn rescues her.58
Moreover, just as in the French Tristan en Prose, in the Castilian version
of the tale Isolda truly shows her mettle as a lady who is not only courtly
but resourceful, intelligent and compassionate. From the window of her
tower-refuge, she alternately reasons with and cajoles Palomades. Once
Tristn arrives and begins to do battle with her captor, she even pleads for
Palomades life with her lover, thus saving him from certain death at the
hands of a rival who is clearly his superior. Indeed, this detail should give
us reason to pause before we simply assume that the Christian soldier in
the ceiling image is being killed. Instead, Isolda proposes a courtly solution
to the problem which both parties accept. Thus, they both live, as it were,
to ght another day, and each eventually saves the life of the other because
of their mutual recognition of nobility and worth.59
How, though, may we be sure that the Christian knight in the culminat-
ing image of the Hall of Justice ceiling cycles is in fact intended to be
57
As stated above in note 19, whereas Tristans pagan rival is named Palomedes in other
European versions of the tale, in Castile, he is named Palomades.
58
Characteristic of both the Castilian version and that found in the French Tristan en
Prose. See Cuesta Torre, Aventuras amorosas, 140-145.
59
Cuesta Torres, Aventuras amorosas, 90-91; 97.
identied as Palomades? I must admit that for some time I had nothing
but intuition on which to base my claims. While researching this project,
in light of my growing certainty that the images did consistently reference
TI and of the Castilian rewriting of the pagan knights name from Pal-
omedes to Palomades, the representation of three doves (in Spanish, palo-
mas) on the Christian knights shield seemed, to me, to put it mildly,
suggestive (Illustrations 13 and 16). Nonetheless, the word is a Spanish
word and the patrons and primary audience in question were Arabic speak-
ers, so there was still room for doubt.
Some months ago, however, I was able to view BNM Ms. 22644, frag-
ments of an illustrated fteenth-century copy of Tristn de Leons. One of
the illustrations shows Palomades, again defeated in a tournament by his
rival Tristn. He bears a shield almost identical to the one in the hands of
the Christian knight on the Hall of Justice ceilings, also adorned with
three doves (Fig. 1).60 The gure is identied in a caption as Palomades de
las dos espadas, and the scene is observed from atop a palace by several
very concerned damsels.
In all European versions of the narrative including the Castilian, Palo-
mades is a pagan, son of the idolater King Ebalato.61 On the ceilings,
however, an ethnic and confessional switch similar to the one proposed
above for the Nasrid version of FBF has occurred, for the knight who
is about to win the girl and get to take her out of the tower is clearly a
Muslim. The caballero being defeated is just as clearly dressed as a Christian.
I believe, in essence, that the Nasrids have switched the religions of the two
protagonists, and that Palomedes, now a Christian (the Nasrid version of
an indel) is pitted against a noble Muslim rival and protagonist. In the
process, the nobler of two possible rivals has been chosen for the Muslim
Tristnif, as all courtly folk recognized to be true, a knights triumph is
only as good as his rival is noble, and if King Mark is, as he has become by
the mid-fourteenth century, a miserable coward with asss ears, and if his
own wife refuses to even allow him touch to her, then of what benet is it
to the hero to triumph over him? Palomadeshere a Christian indel
Palomadesserves the purposes much better.
What should we imagine the purpose of these images to be? As men-
tioned above, in the battle as described in TI, Palomades survives, and I
60
BNM Ms. 22644, 353-354, 1, XII; many thanks, again, to Rosa Rodrguez Porto for
suggesting that we view these images together.
61
Cuesta Torre, Aventuras amorasas, 85.
Figure 1. Palomades Defeated by Tristn, fragmentary copy of Tristn de

Leons, fteenth century, BNM Ms. 22644, 353-354, 1.
strongly believe that we should imagine the same to be true of Christian

knight in the nal of the Alhambra ceiling images. Therefore, overt state-
ments concerning tensions between Muslims and Christians, or expres-
sions of subconscious sentiments of cultural inferiority on the part of the
Nasrids62 as possible interpretive directions would seem to oer the prover-
bial easy way out. Rather, I believe that these scenes have a didactic, discur-
sive function. They oer viewers, many of whom, like Flores at the court
of the King of Babylon, may have been young knights-in-training,
whether Nasrid or Castilian, the opportunity to tell (as the interactive ges-
tures and informal, cross-legged postures of the older gentlemen seated in
the central ceiling suggest that they might be doing) courtly stories and
debate the nobility of the characters decisions and actions. These are pur-
poses which we know to have been served by courtly narrative elsewhere in
Europe, and there is every reason to entertain the possibility that similar
functions were envisioned for the Hall of Justice images.63
The nal battle or joust scene, whether read as the culmination of TI or
of FBF, is rendered in the larger of the two scales and is placed in absolute,
geometric, and pendant relationship to the Soldier-vs-Wild Man group
(Illustrations 13, 15, 16 and 18). While the baser self, or possibly the baser
selves, of the knights of the Order of the Scarf, which I believe to be repre-
sented by the Wild Man (notice the belt he shares with others of the mem-
bers of the Order; belts, are highly uncharacteristic of Wild Man
iconography)64 must be conquered, as the Christian knight, or Palomades,
does, in the end the Lady will only belong to one knight, and only the
noblest will win her. Cuesta, indeed, notes that Palomades is presented in
Tristan de Leons as having acted on his baser instincts in this case despite
his inherent nobility. On the Hall of Justics ceilings, the nobler knight is
unquestionably the Muslim (whether Flores or Tristn), and his nobility is
only further heightened by the fact that it is his rival, rather than he him-
self, who is shown defeating both the Wild Man and the baser nature of
physical lust.65
Broad or more general statements concerning Nasrid nobility are cer-
tainly being made as well, and these would probably extend to any allies
62
Dodds, Paintings in the Hall of Justice, 196-197.
63
See Sandra Hindman, Sealed in parchment: rereadings of knighthood in the illuminated
manuscripts of Chrtien de Troyes (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1994); Rushing,
Images of Adventure.
64
Again, thanks are due to Jessica Streit for this observation.
65
On the Wild Man, see the essay by Simone Pinet in this issue.
who happened to be present. Nobility is reected in the man-to-beast

combats being here undertaken. As noted by Ramon Llull in his mystically
tinged Libro de la Orden de la Caballeria66of demonstrable relevance to
Castile both because it was translated and collected in the fourteenth cen-
tury and because it informed other treatises on the same subject composed
by members of the Castilian nobility, such as the Don Juan Manuels Libro
de la Cazait is particularly worthy of the caballero and particularly
demonstrable of his nobility to hunt wild boar, lions and stags. It is also
relevant that great attention is given in the Castilian version of TI to
Tristns education as a knight, and to his progress in fechos de armas.67
This is tracked by his progress, just as in the second, or larger, register of
images in the Hall of Justice ceilings, from hunting to hand-to-hand com-
bat. As noted by numerous scholars, trained birds of prey used for falconry
were habitually given Arthurian names like Lanzarote and Gaviln by Cas-
tilian royalty and nobility; the resonances with our ceiling images are
dicult to escape.68 Similarly, didactic treatises on horsemanship and
hunting were composed for the Nasrid court by one of its more erudite
members, Ibn Hudhayl, and were intended for the education of Nasrid
knights, courtiers and princes.69 All, moreover, of these tenets and ideals
66
Ramon Llull, Libro de la orden de caballera, nota preliminar y traduccin de Luis
Alberto de Cuenca (Madrid: Alianza, 2000). Many thanks to Jessica Streit for this sugges-
tion, made in a seminar paper written at the University of New Mexico during the spring
of 2003; connections to Don Juan Manuels Libro de la Caza are also suggested by Cuesta
Torre, Aventuras amorasas, 67 .
67
See Cuesta Torre, Aventuras amorosas, 67 .
68
Ibid.; see also James J. Wilhelm, ed., The Romance of Arthur: an anthology of medieval
texts in translation (New York, NY: Garland, 1994), 202; 207-208.
69
Al ibn Abd al-Rahmn Ibn Hudhayl al-Fazr al-Ghirnt , Maqlt al-udab wa-
munzart al-nujab; tahqq Muhammad Adb al-Jdir (Dimashq: Dr al-Bashir, 2002);
idem, Tuhfat al-anfus wa-shir sukkn al-Andalus/La parure des cavaliers et linsigne des preux
[par] Aly ben Abderrahman ben Hodel el Andalusy. Traduction franaise prcde dune tude
sur les sources des hippiatres arabes et accompagne dappendices critiques sur lhistoire du
pur-sang, de lquitation et des sports hippiques arabes, en Maghreb et en Orient, par Louis
Mercier (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1924); idem, Tuhfat al-anfus wa-shir sukkn al-Andalus,
tahqq Abd al-Ilh Ahmad Nabhn, Muhammad Ftih Slih Zaghal (al-Ayn: Markaz
Zyid lil-Turth wa-al-Trkh, 2004); idem, H ilyat al-fursn wa-shir al-shujn; tahqq
wa-talq Muhammad Abd al-Ghan H asan (Al-Qhirah: Dr al-Marif lil-T ibah wa-al-
Nashr, 1951); Ramon Llull, Libro de la orden de caballera, nota preliminar y traduccin de
Luis Alberto de Cuenca (Madrid: Alianza, 2000); Lus Alberto de Cuenca, ed., Floresta
Espaola de varia caballera: Raimondo Lulio, Alfonso X, Don Juan Manuel (Madrid: Editora
Nacional, 1975).
are reected in the rules of conduct of the Order of the Band70 and may,
thus, be assumed to have been understood, armed and viewed as relevant
by both Christian and Muslim members of the organization.
Finally, any full interpretation of the larger signicance of the paintings
must take into account the function and purpose of the Palace of the Lions.
I am largely in agreement with the madrasa interpretation of the space
recently oered by Juan Carlos Ruiz.71 Ruiz arguments are centered around
the comparison of the plan-type of the Palace of the Lions with certain
nearly contemporary madrasas in North Africa, where both Muhammad V
and the minister, historian and mystic Ibn al-Khatb72 had spent a
signicant amount time immediately prior to the construction of the Pal-
ace of the Lions. Ruiz arguments would appear to support observations
made by Jos Miguel Puerta concerning the important funerary connota-
tions of this space as a whole, given its proximity to the rawda, or the
burial ground of the Nasrid Sultans.
I am fully convinced of the patrons intent for his Garden of Delights
(riyd al-sad)73 to serve as a place of reection and learningas I will
argue in a forthcoming publication, the verses inscribed on the palaces
walls, together with its physical layout, can be read as proposing to viewers
and visitors a series of four allegorically related gardens on two axes, each
conceived for the purposes of contemplation, reection and edication.74
The gardens represented on the ceilings of the so-called Hall of Justice
are the gardens of worldly and courtly knowledge, and it is not dicult
to imagine Nasrid courtiers and princes, in addition to beneting from
the treatises on horses, horsemanship, poetics and Susm composed for
70
See the essay by Ana Echevarria in this issue.
71
Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza, El Palacio of the Lions de la Alhambra: Madrasa, zawiya y
tumba de Muhammad V? Estudio para un debate, Al-Qantara 22 (2001), 77-120.
72
On Ibn al-Khatb, see Foco de antigua luz sobre la Alhambra (Madrid: Instituto Egip-
cio de Estudios Islmicos en Madrid, 1988); Jorge Lirola, Ibn al-Jatb, in J. Lirola Del-
gado and J. M. Puerta Vlchez, eds., Diccionario de autores y obras andaluses (Granada: El
Legado Andalus, 2002), 643-698.
73
As Jos Miguel Puerta Vlchez has recently reminded us, the palace was, in fact, known
to its fourteenth-century audience by this name; see El vocabulario esttico de los poemas
de la Alambra, en J.A. Gonzlez Alcantud y A. Malpica Cuello, eds., Pensar la Alambra
(Granada, 2001), 69-87; esp. 8, n. 12. The title was used by Ysuf III in his dwn of
Ibn Zamrak; see Muhammad ibn Ysuf ibn Zumruk; Muhammad Tawfq Nayfar, ed.,
Dwn Ibn Zumruk al-Andalus (Beirut: Dr al-Gharb al-Islm,1997), 124 (citation apud
Puerta).
74
Discussed in detail in Robinson, Toward a Poetics.
educational purposes by luminaries of the Grenadine court such as Ibn

Hudhayl and Ibn al-Khatb, proting from their elucidation and explica-
tion. It is also possible, as I will explore in the larger study to which this
article is a prelude, that TI called up resonances of another familiar narra-
tive, Majnn Layl and, thus, of Su concepts of union between devoted
lovers and divine beloveds (and it is important to remember that, in four-
teenth-century Granada, Susm was taught as a science).75 FBF, mean-
while, kept viewers and listeners grounded in the earthly quest for noble
valor and justly ruled (and gained) kingdoms, a quest which often
involvedinevitably, for dwellers on either side of the ever-shifting Castil-
ian-Nasrid frontierloyalties other than those to members of ones
own religion.
75
On the importance of Susm in Nasrid culture, see Jos Miguel Puerta Vlchez,
Historia del pensamiento esttico rabe: al-Andalus y la esttica rabe clsica (Madrid: Edi-
ciones Akal, 1997), 720-737 and 744-806; idem, La cultura y la creacin artstica, in
Historia del Reino de Granada, 3 v. (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2002), I, 349-413;
Maribel Fierro, Opposition to Susm in al-Andalus, in F. de Jong and B. Radtke, eds.,
Islamic mysticism contested: thirteen centuries of controversies and polemics (Boston, MA: Brill,
1999), 174-206, esp. 197-205; and eadem, The Ansrs, Nasr al-Dn and the Nasrids in
al-Andalus, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 31 (2006), 232-249. See also Daro
Cabanelas, La Madraza rabe de Granada y su suerte en poca cristiana, Cuadernos de la
Alhambra, vol. 24. Granada, 1988; ibidem, Universidad y ciudad: la universidad en la histo-
ria y la cultura de Granada (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1994); Virgilio Martnez
Enamorado, Epigrafa y Poder. Inscripciones rabes de la Madrasa al-Yadda de Ceuta (Ceuta:
Museo de Ceuta, 1998); George Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in
Islam and the West (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981); Luis Seco de Lucena
Paredes, El hayib Ridwan, la madraza de Granada y las murillas de Albayzin, Al-Andalus
21 (1956), 285-296.
Medieval
Encounters
Painting Politics in the Alhambra
Ana Echevarria
Facultad de Geografa e Historia, Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia
Paseo de la Senda del Rey 7, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Abstract
This article endeavours to shed new light on the meaning of the ten Muslim male gures
depicted in the central vault of the Hall of Justice in the Alhambra. First, new chronologies
are attempted for the hall and the painting according to historical evidence contained in
chronicles and literary sources. The study of the architectural frame of the paintings, inter-
preted as a madrasa-zawiya, suggests a relationship between the painting and the books
intended to be kept below it. Therefore, an analysis of the emirs literary entourage is basic
for the interpretation of the ceiling. Finally, the question of armouries and shields to be
found in the vault is taken into account to demonstrate that some of this work may have
been re-elaborated by Christians after taking possession of the palaces. The shields and the
concept of the Order of the Band are too far from Islamic tradition as to belong to the
original design of this painting, as critical examination of the Orders internal code shows.
Keywords
Alhambra, Nasrids, Order of the Band, Muhammad V.
For viewers approaching the fourteenth-century painted ceilings of the so-

called Hall of Justice in the Alhambras Palace of the Lions, none is
more striking than the one that adorns the central vault: the identity of the
ten, seemingly Muslim male gures represented there has been disputed
for decades (Illustrations 1-5). This contribution endeavours to shed new
light on the meaning of this painting, through an analysis of the political
context in which it should be understood. The Court of the Lions, known
during the lifetime of its patron, Muhammad V, as al-Riyd al-Sad, has
recently been re-evaluated in a suggestive article by Ruiz Souza as a
madrasa-zawya with important connections to contemporary architec-
ture in the Maghreb. Similarly, Almagro has demonstrated, rst, that the
building designs of Pedro I of Castile at the Alczar of Seville were adapted
from Islamic architectural and gardening schemes, and that knowledge of
[48] 200 A. Echevarria / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 199-218
Pedro Is buildings, in turn, almost certainly impacted the conception of

Muhammad Vs palaces in the Alhambra.1 Muhammad V returned to
Granada in 1362, after having spent some time as a refugee, rst in Seville
and then at the Marinid Ab Salms court in Fez. Almost as soon as he was
reinstated on the Nasrid throne, he undertook both renovations and the
construction of a magnicent new palace at the Alhambra. He began with
a new mexuar (hall or salon where ocial dynastic business was con-
ducted), which was linked to the old mosque, and also carried out impor-
tant renovations in the so-called Hall of the Boat (Sala de la Barca) and the
northern gallery at the Palace of Comares (Qasr al-sultn), the center of
court life.
According to Fernndez Puertas, construction took place between 1362
and 1370.2 During this same period of time, Muhammad V also founded
the mristn (hospital) (1365-1367) as waqf (a property or institution
endowed in perpetuity and subject to certain conditions imposed by the
patron or founder).3 As soon as these two buildings were nished, a third
complex with very dierent functions, both private and public, was begun
between the now heavily renovated Palacio de Comares and the rawda,
or royal cemetery, where members of the Nasrid dynasty were buried: the
Riyd al-Sad. I will leave further discussion of the architectural functions
of this palace to specialists, but, from a historians point of view, Ruiz
Souzas argument seems sound and makes a great deal of sense when con-
sidered in the general context of dynastic display and conspicuous archi-
tectural consumption that characterized both the Maghreb and al-Andalus
at the time.
Several dierent useseach according to the interpretation given to the
entire complex by a given school or scholarhave been proposed for one
particular component of the Riyd al-Sad, the so-called Hall of Justice
or Hall of Kings.4 During the past 30 years (a short time-span by schol-
arly standards), the palace has been interpreted variously as an urban villa
1
Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza, El Palacio de los Leones de la Alhambra: madrasa, zwiya y
tumba de Muhammad V? Estudio para un debate, Al-Qantara 22 (2001), 77-120. For
Seville, see Antonio Almagro, El alczar de Sevilla en el siglo XIV, in Ibn Khaldn. El
Mediterrneo en el siglo XIV, (Granada: Legado Andalus, 2006), 398-403: 403.
2
Antonio Fernndez Puertas, El arte, in J. M. Jover, coord.; Mara Jess Viguera
Molins, ed., El reino nazar de Granada, Historia de Espaa Menndez Pidal, 4 vols.,
(Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 2000), vol. VIII. 4, 193-284, esp. 237-245.
3
Fernndez Puertas, El arte, 261.
4
Fernndez Puertas, El arte, 248-261.
A. Echevarria / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 199-218 201 [49]
in the rustic style of Vitruvius;5 a place of rest and leisure within which the
Hall of Justice would have served as the banquet-hall; or a sort of summer
pleasure palace.6 The latest interpretationRuiz Souzassuggests that
this area served as the institutional library for the madrasa he believes to
have been housed in this palace, in a fashion similar to the library of the
Qarawiyn mosque in Fez. Books would have kept in the small open rooms
(alcobas) along the back wall, both in order to protect them from atmo-
spheric damage and to make them easily accessible to scholars or librarians.
The gallery that lies between the Hall of Justice and the Patio of the Lions
would have allowed the passage of sucient light for reading or copying,
as well as additional protection for the books kept at the back.
Also part of this complex would have been the three larger spaces or
rooms atop which we nd the paintings which are the subject of this vol-
ume. Before turning to them, I would like to oer a few considerations
about the rooms themselves, in light of Ruiz Souzas argument.7 If we
assume that these spaces did indeed serve as the royal library, it is conceiv-
ableand even likelythat the iconographic conception of the ceiling
paintings was in some way related to the contents of that library. Royal
patronage, literary habits and iconographic tradition would all certainly
have been taken into account in the conception of the ornamental pro-
gram of the three vaults, but it is also important to remember that patrons,
painters and audiences alike would have been aware that these vaults cov-
ered, not only the spaces that housed the royal collection of books, but the
books themselves. If we assume such a relationship, then it is also logical to
assume that each of the scenes portrayed referred in some way to the books
contained in the shelves below. References to frontier romances, literary
5
James Dickie, Los palacios de la Alhambra, in Jerilynn D. Dodds, ed., Al-Andalus.
Las artes islmicas en Espaa (New York, Madrid: Metropolitan Museum/El Viso, 1992),
142-147.
6
Dickie, Los palacios, and Fernndez Puertas, El arte, 252 seem to agree on this
point.
7
Ruiz Souza, El Palacio de los Leones, 96-97. I do not agree with the classication of
these rooms as the halls three major spaces, as stated by Dodds, since they are in fact quite
small in comparison to the main hall to which they are related. It should be made clear,
moreover, that these rooms are related both spatially and conceptually to other small rooms
or alcobas with which they alternate along the back wall of the palace. It seems logical to
assume that both groups of spaces were destined for the same purpose. Jerrilynn D. Dodds,
The Paintings in the Sala de la Justicia of the Alhambra: Iconology and Iconography, Art
Bulletin LXI, no. 2 (1979), 186-197: 186.
gures, chivalric deeds and legends, clearly essential to the decorative

scheme of the ceilings, could thus be seen in a newand much more
signicantlight. The implications of these relationships, possibly quite
specic in terms of the books shelved in each room, for the two lateral
vaults on which courtly narrative images are depicted are analyzed exten-
sively by other contributors to this volume. The books placed under the
central dome were probably historic of the dynasty, Arabic chronicles and
mirrors for princes.
A date during the nal third of the fourteenth century, or more
specically 1380-1390, appears to be accepted by most scholars who have
addressed the paintings. This date range does indeed correspond to a period
during which we may imagine the building to have been under construc-
tion; more importantly, however, it invalidates the often-reiterated argu-
ment that the paintings were produced by Mudjar painters lent by Pedro I
to Muhammad V at the latters request: Pedro I died in 1369, well before
the paintings were completed.8 Moreover, if we accept that the palace was
begun sometime around 1370 and allow, at the very least, a few years for
its completion, and then suppose (as appears logical) that the paintings
would have not have been commissioned until after the actual construc-
tion of the vaults, in order to assure that they would exactly t the wooden
frame into which they would be placed, Pedro Is participation appears
even less likely. These observations do not obviate the possibility that the
artisans were in fact Mudjars, as argued by Dodds and others, but it does
cast into serious doubt the theory that it was specically Pedro Is intimate
or friendly relationship with Muhammad V that facilitated or resulted in
their use.9
I will not be concerned here, at any rate, with the theories regarding the
authorship of the paintings, given that the topic has been thoroughly dealt
with by other scholars; rather, I will oer some considerations about the
iconographic program carried out by the artists, certainly under the direc-
8
B. Pavn Maldonado, Escudos y reyes en el Cuarto de los Leones de la Alhambra,
Al-Andalus 35 (1970), 179-197: 193; Dodds, Paintings, 188, 191; Carmen Berns
Madrazo, Las pinturas de la Sala de los Reyes de la Alhambra. Los asuntos, los trajes, la
fecha, Cuadernos de la Alhambra 18 (1982), 21-50: 31.
9
Pavn, Escudos y reyes, 181; Notas sobre el escudo de la Orden de la Banda en los
palacios de D. Pedro y Muhammad V, Al-Andalus 37 (1972), 229-232: 231-232 and
Dodds, Paintings, 188, recall former theories as well as their own. On the techniques
used for the wood, leather and paintings, see J. Bermdez Pareja, Pinturas sobre piel en la
Alhambra de Granada (Granada: Patronato de la Alhambra), 1987, 53-59, 61-62; English
translation 143-145, 147-150.
tion of a powerful patron, Muhammad V. Despite widely held beliefs

among scholars concerning Islamic reticence toward representations of the
human form, gural scenes depicting battles, courtly gures or heraldry
were important elements of Mudjar painting in Castile; therefore, Pavns
assumption, seconded by Dodds, concerning the Mudjar identity of the
artisans could well be correct. These motifs did not, however, habitually
appear in domes in a Christian context: with the exception of the domes
found at Tordesillas and Coca,10 both of whose ornamental programs are
continuous with that of the spaces beneath them, all domed structures of
the qubba type known from Christian contexts, on the other hand, are
either painted a single color or ornamented with geometrical motifs.
On the central vault are depicted ten male gures, dressed in garnachas
(cloaks) and tunics in various colors; some of these garments are hooded,
and some of the men wear cloaks. Their heads are covered with white tur-
bans, and their waists encircled by belts (tahales), from which hang ornate
ceremonial swords; their chests are crossed by thin bands or strips of
leather. Early scholarship identied these men as the rst ten Sultans of the
Nasrid dynasty.11 Subsequent theories identied them alternately as judges,
sages and authors from diverse moments in history; masters or doctors
dressed as kings who might symbolize the sciences; or the learned protago-
nists of the well-known and widely-distributed text known as Sendebar,
despite the fact that these latter numbered seven, rather than ten.12 What-
ever their ultimate identication, the ten seated gures appear to engage in
a leisurely conversation under a star-lled sky.
This particular iconographic conguration was surely chosen for specic
reasons. In order to ascertain them, it will be necessary to examine
Muhammad Vs cultural background as source of inspiration for his artis-
tic patronage. During the years that immediately surrounded the paintings
10
Carmen Rallo Gruss, Aportaciones a la tcnica y estilstica de la pintura mural en Cas-
tilla a nal de la Edad Media. Tradicin e inuencia islmica (Madrid: Fundacin Universi-
taria Espaola, 2002), 66-68, 99-101.
11
It was assumed for centuries that the ten gures represented members of the Nasrid
dynasty, but this theory is now rejected by several prominent scholars, such as Bermdez
Pareja, Pinturas sobre piel, 29; ibidem, La Alhambra, in M. Hattstein and P. Delius, eds., El
Islam. Arte y arquitectura (Cologne: Knemann, 2000), 290. Others, however, such as Rachel
Ari, Quelques remarques sur le costume des musulmans dEspagne au temps des Nasrides,
Arabica, XII-3 (1965), pp. 244-261, and Berns, Las pinturas, 21-36, still support it.
12
Dodds, Paintings, p. 195; Ruiz Souza, El Palacio de los Leones, 96; Rallo, Aporta-
ciones a la tcnica, 239-240. An edition of the text is found in Mara Jess Lacarra, ed.,
Sendebar. Libro de los engaos de las mujeres (Madrid: Ctedra, 1989).
production, Granada was home to a particularly ourishing cultural and

intellectual life due to the presence of the madrasa founded by Ysuf I,
closely related to the courtly cultural sphere. The madrasa, built under the
patronage of Ysuf Is vizier, Ridwn (1349), housed many of the most
prominent scholars of the period. Among its lecturers were Ab Abd Allh
ibn Juzayy al-Kalb (1321-1357), an important Nasrid courtier and profes-
sor to Ibn Hudhayl (c. 1329-1399), and the learned Ibn Marzq al-Ays
of Tlemcen (d. 1379), friend of both Ysuf I and Ibn al-Khatb (1313-
1375) and master of the poet Ibn Zamrak (1333-1393). The curriculum
included grammar, legal and religious sciences, Susm, adab (literature),
medicine, mathematics, philosophy and logic.13 It is, thus, no surprise that
the madrasas inuence extended into the Alhambra itself, where the mem-
bers of the chancery and the viziers, most of whom had doubtless been
educated at the institution in question, enjoyed Muhammad Vs protec-
tion and patronage. The library and madrasa built inside the palace were
probably intended to provide further education for the Sultans own sons
and other members of the court. The success at the Nasrid court of poetry
belonging to the fakhr genre (vainglory, self-praise) gives vivid testimony
of the extent of the Sultans generosity.14 However, it is in, on the one hand,
courtly literatureparticularly compositions dedicated to chivalric
themesand, on the other, works belonging to the genre known as mir-
rors for princes that we nd themes most closely related to the iconog-
raphy of the Hall of Justice ceilings. With the possible exceptions of
Ab Muhammad ibn Juzayy al-Kalb (1315-1383) or Ibn Simk al-mil
(14th c.), Ibn Hudhayl was undoubtedly the master of the latter genre.
Muhammad V commissioned from him the Kitb tuhfat al-anfus (The
Book of the Ornament of Souls),15 a treatise on holy war, horses and
13
Jos Miguel Puerta Vlchez, La cultura y la creacin artstica, in R. G. Peinado San-
taella, ed., Historia del Reino de Granada I. De los orgenes a la poca mudjar (hasta 1502)
(Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2000), 349-413; p. 350-352.
14
Only to mention a few examples, Ibn al-Khatb, great vizier and teacher of the heir to
the sultanate, author of a great number of titles; Ibn Zamrak, the poet of the verses inscribed
in the Alhambra; and even from the distance, Ibn al-Hajj al-Numayr (1313-1383), estab-
lished in Tlemcen, author of the Kitb qarin al-qasar dedicated to Muhammad V, and Ibn
Khaldn (1332-1406), who stayed at the royal court in 1362-1363. Puerta Vlchez, La
cultura, 358-365.
15
Ibn Hudhayl, Lornement des ames et la devise des habitants del Andalus, transl. Louis
Mercier (Leiden: Brill, 1936-1939; Frankfurt: Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic
Science at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, 2002, reed.).
weapons, which he later summarized for Muhammad VII as the Kitb

hilyat al-fursn (The Book of the Embellishment of Steeds).16 Three more
works on veterinary medicine, adab and education were dedicated to the
Sultan; together, they oer an idealized portrait of a powerful and prosper-
ous Granada at the end of the fourteenth century.17 Both Ibn al-Khatb
and Ibn Hudhayl oer important clues to the understanding of the central
vault of Muhammad Vs library.
The possibility that the ten men represent Muhammad Vs ancestors
seems indeed slim when we remember that, according to Ibn al-Khatbs
history of the dynasty, he was only the eighth Nasrid Sultan;18 it seems
particularly unlikely that the remaining two gures represent his brother,
who usurped his throne, or his son as his successors. Christian certainty
concerning the identity of the gures as kings was probably inuenced by
the comparison of this painting to the galleries of kings in fashion in con-
temporary Castilian palaces, or alczares. Lalaing and Hurtado de Men-
doza, for instance, the rst to mention it refer to the Hall of Justicia
image as paintings of kings, were well-acquainted with these halls in the
alczares of Segovia and Seville. Ibn Khaldns frequently-cited testimony
concerning the Muslim imitation of the Christian taste for gural paint-
ings, which he considered to be in direct opposition to the teachings of
Islam, is also relevant here.19 Furthermore, there are several well-known
examples of dynastic painting in Islamic art, such as the kings from the
baths of Qusayr Amr or a seventeenth-century gallery of kings at a
Moroccan palace mentioned by a number of friars.20
A closer examination of the image, however, casts the earlier identications
of the gures into doubt. (Illustration 1) The ten men appear to maintain
a relationship best described as egalitarian. None among them seems to be
the protagonist, although two or three appear to command the attention
16
Ibn Hudhayl, Gala de caballeros, blasn de paladines, transl., Ma Jess Viguera (Madrid:
Editora Nacional, 1977).
17
Puerta Vlchez, La cultura, 364-365.
18
Ibn al-Khatb, Historia de los reyes de la Alhambra, eds. E. Molina and J. Ma Casciaro
(Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1998), 173-177.
19
Ibn Khaldn, Introduccin a la historia universal (al-Muqaddimah), ed. E. Trabulse
(Mxico: FCE, 1997), 308.
20
The kings at Qusayr Amr are probably not a dynasty but subjected vassals of the caliph,
despite the argument of Dodds, Paintings, 195. See Martn Almagro et al., Qusayr Amr.
Residencia y baos omeyas en el desierto de Jordania (Granada: Legado Andalus, 2002). The
second example could be itself a copy of the Alhambra. Rallo, Aportaciones a la tcnica, 229.
of the others. No attributes suggest particular or specic associations with

the arts and sciences; details of costume, moreover, do not identify the
gures as judges, but rather suggest similarities with the young courtiers or
knights represented on the lateral vaults. Their headdresses are not those
worn by gures of religious authority, but rather are turbans composed of
caps combined with two ample pieces of cloth, similar to those worn by
Boabdil and preserved at the Royal Armory in Madrid.21 Apparently,
moreover, this white turban was used by the Sultans instead of a crown;
indeed, according to Ibn al-Khatb, there was no special sign of power
worn by the Sultan except the royal tunic.22 The only outstanding cos-
tume feature is the sword worn by each man, certainly intended to identify
all gures represented as warriors, and probably also carrying particular
connotations of holy war, or jihd.23 Given that we have no specic knowl-
edge concerning the features (if any) that distinguished the Sultans tunic
from those of his courtiers, it is impossible to identify any of the ten gures
as a representation of Muhammad V. Ibn Hudhayl, however, oers a pos-
sible clue when he states:
Surrounded by the rampart of his servants and his swords, adorned with his virtues
and his great deeds, as soon as he was well placed along the correct path of religion
may God assist himand had taken as an example the blessed Prophet and his com-
panions, the best among all men, he adopted the path of righteousness as a sign of holy
war and as his insignia.24
21
Berns, Las pinturas, 32-36. She does not nd evidence of any special garment that
distinguishes any of the characters. Their costumes are composed of typical Muslim gar-
ments known as aljubas and garnaches, common also to Christian lands, characterized by
two rows of fringe just below the neckline. These bi-colored garments were in fashion dur-
ing the fourteenth century in Castile and Aragn, and their use spread to Granada in the
fteenth century. These ensembles, moreover, are very similar those found in the portrait of
a particular knight, Alfonso Alvarez de Montemayor, lord of Alcaudete, who was depicted
in the habit of the order of the Band around 1380. Museo Diocesano, Crdoba.
22
Ma Jess Viguera, El soberano, visires y secretarios, in El reino nazar, VIII.3, 319-
363: 333. Ibn al-Khatb, Historia, 141.
23
Although Albarracn believes that these are honorary swords, and that they might
be a distinctive identifying feature of members of the Order of the Band, I rather think they
were jineta swords, the weapons used by the Grenadine army at the time the paintings were
produced. They were highly prized and were frequently given as gifts to Christian kings. See
Joaquina Albarracn, Las pinturas de la cpula elipsoide central de la Sala de los Reyes de
la Alambra, Cuadernos de la Alhambra 41 (2006), 109-117: 113.
24
Envelopp du rempart de ses serviteurs et de ses sabres, par de ses vertus et de ses
hauts faits, lorsquil se fut engag dans la voie prochaine de la religiono Dieu lassiste
He continues his argument by comparing these companions of the Sultan

with the ansr, or companions of the Prophet; one of the chapters of his
treatise concerned with jihd, moreover, tells the stories of the most formi-
dable knights of the jhilya (period of pre-Islamic ignorance) and the
earliest Islamic times.
There are three possible assemblies of knights who were likely to be
represented in Muhammad Vs library. First, the ten gures could be
depicted as seated on the bench of the viziers (al-muwzt/al-muwzart),
some of whom fullled this function in addition to their military duties in
certain districts, as did Ibn al-Khatb himself.25 Second, they could repre-
sent the royal council (mashwara), one of whose members was the com-
mander of the Moroccan volunteer troops (shaykh al-ghuzt al-maghriba).26
The third group of men who enjoyed a similar position to that of the Sul-
tan were the arraces, other members of the Nasrid family who had mili-
tary power in cities or other areas. Many of them also held important
positions in the Nasrid army, and were so closely related by blood to the
Sultan that royal wives were frequently chosen from among their female
descendants.27
The second signicant iconographic feature of these paintings, as noted
by Pavn, are the two badges of the Order of the Band, each anked by
two lions. Heraldry enters Nasrid ornament as a signicant iconographic
element during the reign of Muhammad V, according to Pavn;28 it is
important to underline, however, that there are no known parallels found
elsewhere in the Islamic world. Nor are there Islamic parallels for the coat
of arms that appears as typical a Nasrid shield, as the ones used in the
battleeld were rounded or heart-shaped (the famous adargas). The Sultans
coat of arms closely resembles the badge of the Order of the Band, created
by King Alfonso XI in 1332, an emblem dear to his son, Pedro I, who
displayed it in most of his palaces. It has been suggested that the two
badges of the Order of the Band appear in the ceiling of the Alhambra as
et eut pris comme exemple le Prophte bni et ses compagnons, les meilleurs dentre les
gens, il adopta, pour devise de la guerre sainte et pour insigne distinctif la voie de la droi-
ture, Ibn Hudhayl, Lornement, 99.
25
Ibn al-Khatb, Historia, 129.
26
Ibid., p. 130.
27
Ibid., p. 135. Concerning the power of the arraces, see Ma Jess Viguera, El ejr-
cito, in El reino nazar, VIII.3, 431-475: 440-441.
28
Pavn, Escudos y reyes, 181, 187.
a rearmation of the Nasrid dynastys strength and power.29 One might

well ask, however, what sorts of associations this decoration would suggest
in the minds of those who saw it. If we accept Ruiz Souzas theory that this
area of the palace was Muhammad Vs library, the paintings had a very
restricted audience, probably for the most part limited to members of the
Sultans family, the highest-ranking ocers and students in the royal
madrasa. How would this symbol convey a message of the Sultans great-
ness, given its almost certain associations with subjection or submission to
the Christian king? And how would its presence be connected to the ten
male gures represented at the center of the vault? Why would the artists
have chosen to depict the Christian version of the badge (and a late one, as
we shall see) instead of Muhammad Vs own coat of arms? Let us try to
answer to these questions by examining the way in which the feudal bond
between the kings of Castile and the Sultans of Granada worked, and how
the Order of the Band developed in Christian lands.
From the beginning of the thirteenth century, Castilian kings consis-
tently manipulated diplomatic relations at the highest level toward their
ultimate goal: that of converting Granada into a satellite Castilian king-
dom by means of feudal ties.30 During peaceful times, this bond consti-
tuted an eective way of maintaining dominance. When this could not be
managed, the Castilians tried other means, such as proposingor rather
imposingother candidates to the throne of Granada, supported by
dierent factions throughout the realm. Dynastic legitimization was always
necessary, but in the particular case of the Nasrid dynasty, a case could be
made through the invocation of any one of a number of branches of the
royal family. While the Mudjars, owing to their obvious condition as sub-
jects, were referred to in documents merely as vassals and subjects, the
designation for the Sultan of Granada was chosen with great care. By refer-
ring to the Muslim ruler as vassal and friend , Christian kings both desig-
nated a particularly close (and highly desirable) relationship. The
designation of vassal was one which they applied, likewise and by exten-
sion, to all of the Sultans subjects; the term friend, however, was reserved
29
Ibid., 187-188, 192-193.
30
Other means of coercion, of course, were also available. These included conventional
wars of conquest, economic war (consisting of razzias and quick raids combined with truces
in which money and captives were demanded), and frontier skirmishes undertaken from
strategic posts occupied by the Castilians in frontier towns such as Jan, Seville, Lorca and
Murcia, organized by the great warlords of the border lands.
for the Sultan alone. This view of the Grenadine Sultans as vassals by the
Castilian crown permeated the relations between both kingdoms during
two more centuries.
The rst Christian kings who forced Muslim rulers to sign feudal con-
tracts were Fernando III of Castile and Jaime I of Aragn. The Castilian
king subjected the so-called Mudjar kingdoms of Murcia, Niebla and
Granada by this means, whereas Jaime I held Valencia, Albarracn and
Segura. Because the Christians held the dominant position, a Christian
legal formula was used. From this fact (and from the particular wording of
the documents), many historians have deduced that Granada was a vassal
kingdom of Castile, forgetting one of the most important conditions of
such a feudal agreement: it only lasted as long as the lives of those who
signed it. Death dissolved feudal bonds, given that the vassal swore alle-
giance to his lord only during his lifetime. Afterward, the terms of the
allegiance had to be re-negotiated with the successor. This peculiarity, as
well as the reluctance of Grenadine Sultans to comply with the conditions
demanded by the Castilian kings, characterized the relationship between
the two kingdoms during the fourteenth and fteenth centuries. It also
explains why chronicles mention the compulsion to vassalage, as well as
the imposition of candidates to the throne who had previously sworn
delity to the king of Castile, as justication for military attacks against
Granada.
Upon the signing of the original document of this type, the treaty of
Jan (1246), Muhammad I kissed Fernando IIIs hand, thus acknowledg-
ing that he was the Christian kings vassal. Muhammad I also obligated
himself to the payment of a certain tribute or tax (tributo cierto), and was
obliged to oer his counsel and his army whenever the king requested it.
In exchange, Granada was included in all peace treaties signed between
Castile and Aragn, so that Aragn could not advance toward the south
without beginning a war against both Granada and its protector, Castile.31
Only those Sultans who were in particular danger or who needed help
31
Luis G. de Valdeavellano, Curso de Historia de las Instituciones Espaolas (Madrid:
Alianza, 1962, reed. 1986), 251. Alejandro Garca Sanjun, Consideraciones sobre el
pacto de Jan de 1246, in M. Gonzlez Jimnez, coord., Seville, 1248 (Madrid: Fundacin
Ramn Areces, 2000), 715-722; F. Vidal Castro, Historia poltica, 87. There is no trace
of these feudal contracts before, according to F. Garca Fitz, Relaciones polticas y guerra. La
experiencia castellano-leonesa frente al Islam, siglos XI-XIII (Seville: Universidad de Sevilla,
2002), 34-76.
from Castile in order to keep or obtain their thrones agreed to pay homage
to the Castilian king. In the fourteenth century, these were Muhammad III
and Nasr, who paid tribute and homage to Fernando IV of Castile, and
Muhammad V to Pedro I. In the fteenth century neither Muhammad IX
el Zurdo (the left-handed) nor his opponents (Muhammad VIII, Ysuf V
and Muhammad X, all his relatives) agreed to become Juan IIs vassals.
Only the four Sultans from rival branches of the family, chosen by the
Grenadine aristocracy because of the legitimacy of their female line, paid
homage to the Castilian kings in exchange for military aid: Ysuf IV ibn
al-Mawl and Ismal III under Juan II; Sad and Muley Hacn under
Enrique IV. It is worth noting that, with the exception of Ysuf IV, all had
spent a part of their lives as refugees at the Castilian court, living on the
kings pension.
The Order of the Band represented, in a sense, a continuation of feudal
bonds that characterized relationships between members of the Castilian
kings closest entourage.32 The foundation of the Order was described in
Alfonso XIs chronicle (1332), information which was not yet edited at the
time Pavn and Dodds wrote their articles:
He ordered that some knights and squires of his retinue should wear bands on their
sides and clothes, and so did the King. [And being in Vitoria, he ordered those knights
and squires whom the King had selected for this, to wear the robes with the band he
had given them. Likewise, he wore similar robes with a band; and the rst clothes
which were made for this were white, and the band was black. From then on, those
knights were given each year two sets of garments with band to dress. The band was
broad as a hand, and was put on the pellotes (vests or over-coats) and the other clothes.]
And so it happened that the knights and squires who did a great deed of arms against
the Kings enemies, and tried to do it [the deed], the king conferred the band upon
them and honoured them, so that all the others wished to undertake chivalric deeds so
that they could reach and gain such honor.33
32
The best study of the Order to date is found in Alfonso de Ceballos-Escalera, La
Orden y divisa de la Banda Real de Castilla (Madrid: Prensa y Ediciones Iberoamericanas,
1993). See also DA. J. D. Boulton, The Knights of the Crown. The Monarchical Orders of
Knighthood in Later Medieval Europe, 1325-1520 (Woodbridge, New York: Boydell, 2000),
46-95.
33
This text explains why the details concerning foundation of the Order have been so
extensively debated. The text is found in Gran crnica de Alfonso XI, 2 vols., ed. Diego
Cataln (Madrid: Gredos, 1976), I, 501, completed with the version quoted by Ceballos
Escalera, La Orden y divisa, 32-33: Horden que algunos cavalleros e escuderos de la su
mesnada que traxesen vandas en los costados e paos, e el rey eso mismo. [Et seyendo en
Vitoria mand a aquellos cavalleros et escuderos que el rey tenia escogidos para esto, que
The device was given to those courtiers who were normally in the kings
chamber, conferring particular prestige on some of them; only later, when
the Order became exclusively royal and chivalric, was it conferred on other
warriors.34 At the moment when Alfonso XI decided to create the Order of
the Band, neither he nor many of the lords he included had been knighted;
consequently, none had a coat of arms. Some months later, Alfonso XI
ordered his nobles to join him in a great ceremony involving his own
coronation; he also received the knightly orders of Santiago on this highly
vistiesen paos con banda que l les haba dado. Et l otros vesti paos de eso mesmo con
banda; et los primeros paos que fueron fechos para esto eran blancos, et la banda prieta.
Et dende adelante a estos caballeros dbales cada ao de vestir sendos pares de paos con
banda. Et era la banda tan ancha como la mano, et era puesta en los pellotes et en las otras
vestiduras.] E asi acaesio despues que los cavalleros y escuderos que fazian algund buen
fecho en armas contra los enemigos del rey, e procuravan de lo fazer, el rey davales la vanda
e faziales mucha honrra, en manera que cada uno de los otros cobdiiava fazer vondad de
cavalleria por alcanar e cobrar aquella honrra. For further discusin, see Joaquina Albar-
racn Navarro, La Orden de la Banda a travs de la frontera nazar, in J. Rodrguez
Molina, ed., I Jornadas de Estudios de Frontera. Alcal la Real y el Arcipreste de Hita (Jan:
Diputacin de Jan, 1996), 17-26: 19-25.
34
National Library, Paris, Ms. espagnol 33, 14th c., f. 3. Aqui se comiena el libro de
la Vanda que so el rrey don Alfonso de Castiella e de Leon, e es fundado sobre dos rasones.
La primera alabando cavalleria, la segunda lealtad. Et la rason por quel movio a lo faser es
por que la mas alta e mas preiada Orden que Dios so es la cavalleria e esto por muchas
rasones, sennaladamente por dos: la primera porque la so Dios para defender la su fe. Et
otrosi la segunda para defender cada unos en sus comarcas, sus tierras e sus estados. Et por
esto fallaredes en las coronicas antiguas de los gran (sic) grandes fechos que pasaron, que
apartadamente tomo Dios en si los fechos de las vatallas que pasan por las manos de los
cavalleros. E asi se prueva que precio Dios mas esta orden que ninguna de las otras ordenes
por que se deende la su fe e los reynos e los sennorios por ella. E por esto aquel que fuere
de buena ventura e se toviere por cavallero segunt su estado, deve faser mucho por onrrar la
cavalleria e por la levarla adelante. Otrosi lealtad, es una de las mayores virtudes que puede
aver en alguna perssona, e sennaladamente en el cavallero. Commo quier que se deve guar-
dar en muchas maneras, pero las principales son dos: la primera guardar lealtad a su sennor,
la segunda amar verdaderamente a quien oviere de amar, especialmiente a aquella en quien
posiere su coraon. Otrosi es tenudo omne de amar a si mismo e preiarse e tenerse para
algo, e por esto se so esta Orden de la vanda, porque los cavalleros que quisieren seer en
esta Orden e tomaren la vanda, que ayan en sy estas dos virtudes mas que otros cavalleros:
seer leales a su sennor, amar lealmiente a aquella en quien posiere su coraon. Otrosy man-
tener cavalleria e tenerse por cavalleros mas que otros para faser mas altas cavallerias. Pues
avedes oydo la rrays del comieno por que se zo este libro /3v/queremos vos desir en que
manera se deve faser el cavallero de la vanda quier la gane en la manera que dise en este libro
que la deve ganar, quier gela den por bondat que aya en el. On the Order as an elite mili-
tary unit, see Boulton, Knights of the Crown, p. 94.
symbolic occasion. Subsequently, he himself conferred the orders on one

hundred of his knights, who in turn conferred them upon others.35 The
Order of the Band appears to have been fully constituted on that occasion,
given that the Knights of the Band took part relatively soon thereafter in
the tournaments celebrated in Valladolid (1333) and Burgos (1338). We
have no further archival record of the activities of the Order between the
date of its foundation and the death of its founder in 1350. Nonetheless,
signicant data is found in paintings and tombs.
The statutes of the order were left largely unchanged during the century
following the founders death, with the exception of certain changes which
we shall examine in detail below. Much of Pedro Is reign was marked by
bitter civil wars between the king and his half-brothers, most of whom had
been made knights of the Band under his father. Their confrontations were
peppered with occasions on which they fought for the right to wear the
colours and badges of the Band, all of which are related in the chronicle.36
Most of the nobility had taken the side of the kings brother, Enrique,
particular among them being Pedro Carrillo, who sported red ensigns
sliced by a golden band conferred upon him by Alfonso XI at the time of
the siege of Tarifa. At the battle of Njera, the banner of the Band was car-
ried by the bastard sons army, arousing King Pedros anger and indigna-
tion. Boulton argues that, after the battle, the order may have been
suppressed by Pedro some time between 1366 and his murder in 1369, but
if this is the case, it must have been reconstituted by Enrique once he was
proclaimed king and attained power. At any rate, by 1375, under Enrique,
though the Order was still in existence, its stature appears to have been
somewhat diminished, given that it was habitually conferred as a symbolic
honour upon particularly prestigious guests of the Castilian royal court; all
connotations of an exclusive confraternity for the vassals of the king appear
to have been lost.37
35
Claudio Snchez Albornoz, Un ceremonial indito de coronacin de los reyes cas-
tellanos, in Viejos y nuevos estudios sobre instituciones medievales espaolas, 3 vols. (Madrid:
Espasa Calpe, 1976), II, 211-245; Peter Linehan, Ideologa y liturgia en el reinado de
Alfonso XI de Castilla, in Adline Rucquoi, ed., Gnesis medieval del Estado moderno
(Valladolid: mbito, 1987), 229-243; Isabel Garca Daz, La poltica caballeresca de
Alfonso XI, Miscelnea medieval murciana, XI (1984), 117-134, and eadem, La Orden
de la Banda, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, XL (1991), 48.
36
Crnica de Pedro I, chapter 8.
37
Boulton, Knights of the Crown, 54-59.
Under Pedro I, the badge of the Band had been included in the orna-
mental programs of several buildings, and signicant parallels between
paintings found in Pedro Is palaces and castles in Seville, among other
structures, and Muhammad Vs Alhambra have been pointed out by Pavn
and Rallo Grus.38 According to Pavn, the Castilian army, which included
the knights of the Band, helped Muhammad V to recover his throne in
Granada; following this, until 1368, it was Muhammad Vs turn to aid his
ally Pedro I in his ght against his half-brother Enrique. Pavn suggests
that the Order of the Band was conferred on Muhammad V during this
period, and that the paintings are the reection of the friendship between
the two kings, but he does not present any documentary evidence in sup-
port of his assertions.39 However seductive this theory may be, there is an
unfortunate lack of evidence concerning Muhammad V traveling to or
from Granada via Castile following his deposition by Ismal II (1359-
1360), who was shortly thereafter removed from the throne by Muham-
mad VI (1360-1362). There is evidence that the six hundred Muslim
knights ghting for the king in Teruel were rewarded with the Band in
1363, but there is no proof of its being conferred upon Muhammad V
during the campaigns in Castile or Granada, nor is there any documentary
evidence that Muhammad himself was in Teruel or in Crdoba ghting for
Pedro I. These oensives took place very soon after Muhammad had recov-
ered his throne, and the situation in Granada was not safe enough for him
to leave the city and personally oer his support to Pedro. Muhammad V
called for jihd again in 1365 with the ulterior motive of oering aid to
Pedro I, but it is not likely that, in addition to Grenadine knights, North
African soldiers would have been invested with the Band, and it does not
appear that the Sultan left Granada. Though in theory it was necessary that
the Band be conferred in the presence of the Master of the Order, in the
case that this was impossible, it could also be delivered by six knights to the
new member, so it is certainly not impossible that the Sultan received it
while in Granada, but to date no documentary evidence to support the
veracity of this scenario has appeared.
The second issue that must be considered is that of the changes that
took place in the Order itself and in its physical manifestation, that is, in
38
Pavn Maldonado, B.: Notas sobre el escudo, 229-232, and ibidem, Fronteras
artsticas en la Sevilla rabe-mudjar, Revista del Instituto Egipcio de Estudios Islmicos
XXXI (1999), 107-143; 128-129; Rallo, Aportaciones a la tcnica, 115.
39
Pavn, Escudos y reyes, 186-188.
its badge or coat of arms. It is important to note, rst, that neither Order
nor its aims remained constant throughout its history. There were impor-
tant changes in the statutes of the Order of the Band between its founda-
tion in 1332 and the fteenth century. For instance, revisions place much
greater importance on religious issues than is apparent in the original doc-
ument, perhaps reecting the inuence of a more recently founded order,
such as the Golden Fleece or the Garter. Foreignersincluding Muslim
Sultans who were vassals of the Castilian king, as well as other European
princescould be conferred the Band under the stipulations of the rst
rendering of the statutes, providing they were close enough to the king or
to his sons (as would be the case with members of the royal household, or
hostages brought up together with the princes).40 The original manuscripts
referred only to the general obligations of the knights, with a religious
tenor only being introduced in the second version of the statutes, in a sec-
ond chapter concerning how the knights of the order should make every
eort to attend mass in the morning. After explaining the reasons that
had moved Alfonso XI to create the order, the later manuscriptsthose
which I believe to have been written after Pedro Is defeatinsert this new
second chapter.41 It is crucial to note that, if in fact Pedro had conferred the
Band upon Muhammad V or any other foreigner, this new chapter now
40
Libro de la Vanda. National Library, Paris, ms. espagnol 33, 14th c., f. 2v: Este libro
so el noble rey don Alfonso jo del muy noble rey don Fernando e de la rreyna donna
Constana, e es de la Orden de la vanda, en que cuenta las cosas que deven aver en sy los
cavalleros de la vanda e de las cosas que se deven guardar. E puso en esta Orden todos los
mejores cavalleros e escuderos manebos de su sennorio que entendio que conplian para
esto, et aun algunos de fuera de su sennorio que entendio que lo meresian e conplian para ello.
E la entenion por que lo movio a faser este libro desta Orden adelante lo oyredes en el
prologo deste libro mas conplidamente. Et sose el anno que se el corono e que fueron
fechas las cavallerias en Burgos de los rricos omes e infanones e cavalleros que se y fesieron,
e andava la era de mill e tresientos e sesenta e ocho annos. Italics are mine.
41
Capitulo segundo que fabla como los cavalleros de la Vanda deven faser mucho por
oyr misa en la maana. Pues avedes oydo la rrays del comieno por que se zo este libro de
la vanda, queremos vos dezir las maneras que deven aver en si los cavalleros de la vanda para
andar mas en abito de cavalleros e para poder conplir mejor cavalleria, e para ser mas cor-
teses e mas guardados tanbien en fablar e en su traer e en su comer. Otrosi de quales cosas
se deven guardar e arredrar. Primeramente dezimos que todo cavallero de la vanda que faga
mucho por oyr misa en la maana, pudiendola aver, por que le ayude Dios en su cavalleria
en lo que provare en serviio de Dios e de su sennor. Libro de la Vanda. National Library,
Paris, ms. espagnol 335, f. 3v.
sanctioned their exclusion from the Kings entourage.42 The Order fell
into complete decline following the reign of Enrique II, and was only re-
established by Juan IIor rather by his regents, Catalina of Lancaster and
Fernando de Antequeraas a symbolic honour after 1415, at which time
it was even extended to women. Clearly, the older statutes were either
changed or ignored, but the coat of arms nonetheless saw a revival in the
ornamental programs of royal buildings.
Likewise, the distinctive clothing by which the knights were identied
changed according to both fashion and political exigencies. Initially, only
the cut of his garments distinguished a knight of the Band from others,
and the device that marked them was relatively simple and discreet, con-
sisting only of a band crossing his chest.43 Colours changed frequently,
probably according to those of the apparel of the wearer, as did the par-
ticular fabrics and the embroidery techniques used to represent the band
it is understandable that there has been so much confusion concerning
members of the Order and the use of the arms by rival Castilian kings
Pedro and Enrique. Once a coat of arms was established, during the early
fourteenth century, it appears to have been rendered exclusively as a black
band over a white background; indeed, an ordinance from the King forbade
42
The index demonstrates this clearly: Estos son los capitulos del libro de la Vanda.
Capitulo primero que fabla por qual rason se so este libro de la Orden de la Vanda. Capi-
tulo segundo que fabla en que manera se a de faser el cavallero de la vanda, Libro de la
Vanda. National Library, Paris, ms. espagnol 33, 14th c. f. 1r; published in Ceballos-Escal-
era, La Orden y divisa, 55. Ordenamiento segundo del rrei don Alfonso de la cibdad de
Burgos en rrason de la Vanda, de las justas, de los torneos, de lo que deven faser e conplir
los cavalleros de la Vanda, que fue fecho hera de 1368 annos [1330]. Capitulo primero que
fabla por quales rrasones se zo esta Orden de la Vanda. Capitulo segundo que fabla de
como los cavalleros de la Vanda deven fazer mucho por oyr misa en la maana. Capitulo
tercero que fabla de las cosas que deven guardar los cavalleros de la Vanda en lo que tanne
en fecho de armas. National Library, Paris, ms. espagnol 335, 14th c., . 1-16, marked as
85-99. Segundo ordenamiento del rey don Alfonso de la ibdat de Burgos en razon de la
Vanda e de las justas e de los torneos e de lo que deuen fazer e guardar los caualleros de la
Vanda, que fue fecho hera de 1368 annos [1330]. Capitulo primero, que fabla por qual
razos se zo esta Orden de la Vanda. Capitulo segundo, que fabla de commo los caualleros
de la Vanda deuen fazer mucho por oyr misa en la manana. Capitulo terero que fabla de
las cosas que deuen guardar los caualleros de la Vanda en lo que tae en fecho de armas.
Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Ms. Z-II-14, . 95-107. 14th-15th c. Repeated
in El Escorial, Ms. Z-I-6, . 16v-19v. 14th c. and subsequent versions, according to Isabel
Garca, La Orden de la Banda, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, XL (1991), 29-89.
43
Ceballos Escalera, La Orden y divisa, 43-44.
wearing golden bands.44 Only in the fteenth century did kings begin to
use the red and gold badge, probably based on the colours described by
Lpez de Ayala in his Chronicle of Pedro I, which had been worn by a cer-
tain knight who had been given red and gold by Alfonso XI at the siege of
Tarifa. It is possible that the entire order adopted these colours following
Enriques triumph, or alternatelyas appears even more likelythat the
Chronicle inspired Juan IIs choice of colors when he re-instated the Order
in the fteenth century.45 The dragons or lions often found in representa-
tions from this period are also typical of Juan IIs iconography, as seen in a
number of vaults, including the chapel of Tordesillas and the church of St.
John in Alarcn. It is crucial to emphasize that the coat of arms appearing
in the Alhambra paintings is an example of this secondand much later
manifestation of the badge of the Order, rather than of the earlier, four-
teenth century one.
The Grenadine Band insignia appears in two forms: rst, in the cen-
tral of the three painted vaults (Figure 1), as the Castilian insignia described
above; second, as the Band over a red background, as seen on the exterior
of one of the castles represented in the lateral vault, where it appears with-
out the dragons.46 The legend depicted on the shields typically carved into
walls and doors in Granada never appears in these painted versions. On the
other hand, this is perhaps logical for, as we have seen, vassalage could not
be inherited; therefore, only a Sultan upon whom the Order had actually
been conferred would think of depicting it as a way of identifying himself.
His sons, moreover, would inherit neither the Band not the right to display
its insignia. In addition to the arguments presented in the preceding para-
graphs, it is important to note that other shields mentioned by Pavn in
Seville, Carmona and elsewhere were either produced or inserted in Chris-
tian times.47 With these observations in mind, we may now return to the
question of whether the coat of arms of the Band in the Alhambra ceiling
represents part of the original ornamental program of the Hall of Justice
at the time of its construction, or a later alteration.
Is it possible that Ysuf III, the tenth legitimate king of the Nasrid
dynasty, may have refurbished the decorations of this palace as part of a
44
Ibid., 44-45.
45
Ibid., 45-46; Albarracn Navarro, La Orden de la Banda, 23.
46
Pavn, Escudos y reyes, 187.
47
Pavn, Arte, smbolo y emblemas en la Espaa musulmana, Al-Qantara, VI (1987),
420-424.
visual program of legitimization for his branch of the dynasty? If we con-

sider the placement of the Riyd al-Sad in relation to the palaces con-
structed by this ruler, such a theory appears at least possible. Ysuf IIIs is
one of the least-studied components of the Alhambra complex. Another
possibility might be the redecoration of the palaces by one of the Sultans
of the end of the fteenth century, namely Ab l-Hasan Al or Boabdil,
the products of whose patronage are equally unstudied.
All of these Sultans had long enough reigns to undertake such an ambi-
tious painting project. The legitimization of the Nasrids via their buildings
in the palatine city of the Alhambra has seldom been considered by schol-
ars when analysing the various structures that compose the complex, but
such symbolic gestures of patronage were, of course, vital to the Nasrids
conception of power, particularly given the constant struggles between
dierent branches of the family. If one of the Sultans I have mentioned did
indeed commission these paintings, heraldry, together with the absence of
any sort of hierarchical order among the gures (a characteristic which I
discussed above and which would here imply equality between the actual
possessor of the throne and the potentially more legitimate candidate he
had deposed), might translate into visual assertions of legitimacy. Could
this perhaps be the message the patron of this painting wished to send to
its Islamic audience?
Finally, we might consider the possibility that the heraldic motifs were
executed by Castilians once the city had been captured in 1492, in order
to visually appropriate the palace area of the Alhambra and re-dene its
use. The new Christian patrons had to incorporate what they thought
was a royal gallery of kings into a new, conquered program of signication,
while almost certainlyand somewhat contradictorilybeing favourably
impressed by the paintings themselves. The courtly scenes represented on
the lateral ceilings were easily incorporated into the chivalric environment
of the time, whereas the central scene was more dicult to accept. If the
central vault did in fact contain an Islamic coat of arms in its original state,
this would almost certainly have been Muhammad Vs and re-painting the
band in gold, inserting the dragons, and eliminating the tell-tale Arabic
inscription constituted the easiest way to render the painting acceptable to
Christian eyes: the revised heraldry would immediately evoke the Castil-
ian Band and the submission of Muslim kings to Castile.48
48
Alternately, if no heraldic devices were present in the original, the ones presently there
might have been added by the Castilian patrons for the same purpose.
Few conclusions can be drawn from the central painting of the Hall of
Justice until new technical research into the date of painting has been
undertaken. It is quite likely that the ultimate goal of this painted council
of legal experts or warriors was political propaganda. By legitimizing the
Nasrid dynasty through its representation in a gallery of kings, crucial polit-
ical support could be achieved, even in the highly unstable context of the
Grenadine court. Several hypotheses have been presented in this study, but,
in the end, it is impossible to know which Sultan commissioned the painted
vault. Whoever the patron may have been, however, and whatever the exact
date of the paintings execution, it seems likely that the two coats of arms
related to the Castilian Order of the Band represent a later addition.
Medieval
Encounters
Courtliness and its Trujamanes :

Manufacturing Chivalric Imagery
across the CastilianGrenadine Frontier
Rosa Mara Rodrguez Porto

Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
e-mail: rosaporto@mikkeliainen.com
Abstract
The comparative analysis of the Hall of Justice ceilings and several fourteenth-century
Castilian courtly artefactsabove all, the Crnica Troyana de Alfonso XI (escorial, h.i.6)
provides suggestive insights for thinking about the threads of meaning associated with
chivalric imagery in medieval Castile and Granada. Moreover, tracing the dierent modes
of Iberization of a repertoire of motifs traditionally considered northern or western,
in both thematic and formal terms, as they are incorporated into the ethnic and cultural
plurality of the Iberian Peninsula will serve as an opportunity for scholarship to re-examine
the processes of cultural formation, allowing us to avoid simplistic labels and rigid param-
eters. Translation as a paradigm for artistic creation can be useful in this task, since it can
help us to make sense, not only of the singularity of Hispanic achievements, but also of the
tensions perceivable in the Peninsular dynamics of artistic production.
Keywords
Translation, Chivalry, Courtliness, Style, Medieval Hispanic Literature, Book illumination,
Wall paintings, Stuccoes, Alfonso XI of Castile (1312-1350), Muhammad V of Granada
(1354-1391)
The Western appearance of the painted ceilings in the Hall of Justice

of the Alhambra (ca. 1360s) has always been a troublesome issue for histo-
rians of medieval Hispanic art, who have been surprisedseemingly
repeatedlyby the unexpected presence of chivalric narratives and exuber-
ant Gothic forms at the heart of the (Oriental) Nasrid kingdom (Illustra-
tions 1, 6 and 13). The ceilings have been consistently linked, in other
words, whether directly or indirectly, to foreign inuence. Nevertheless, a
sort of historiographic inertia has allowed scholarship to neatly avoid the

[68] 220 R. M. Rodrguez Porto / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 219-266
challenges posed by an ensemble of courtly imagery apparently displaced

from its rightful and original context of production and reception.
This essay will argue for the abandonment, in scholarship concerned
with the ceilingsand, indeed, with the tradition of courtly culture in
the Iberian Peninsula in generalof many of these parameters by consid-
ering the Hall of Justice paintings as a response to earlier Castilian articu-
lations of courtly imaginary and culture, most of which date to the middle
of the fourteenth century. The idea of the Nasrid imaginary as a response
implies the existence of a common concept and ideal of courtliness which
was open to negotiation between al-Andalus and Castile, each already
profoundly aected by the uninterrupted ow of cultural exchanges that
had characterized the Iberian Middle Ages since its very earliest days.
Once they are conceived as a complex scenario of constant artistic exchanges,
the cultural spaces in which these encounters took place demand a new
hermeneutical frame, one capable of explaining such phenomena as the
Alhambra ceilings. By considering the Grenadine image program, together
with certain works produced in contexts connected to the Castilian court
between 1340 and 1360, as translations with respect to their literary refer-
ents, we allow for a two-tiered exploration.1 On the one hand, this
approach avoids a conceptualization of image-text relations in univocal
terms, emphasizing not only the function performed by such works in the
consolidation and diusion of a chivalric imaginary, but also their active
contribution to the formulation of new meanings as well as the sanction
or subversion of pre-existing ones in light of the interests of particular
audiences. On the other hand, it invites the integration of texts and
images into a sole framework whose ramications extend beyond geo-
graphic frontiers and linguistic barriers. This analogy with translation
processes allows us to consider not only the artists in charge of creating
these visual texts, but also those courtiers involved in their design or artic-
ulation, as trujamanes (interpreters): as translators, interpreters or story-
tellers, they acted as intermediaries in the negotiation of the Iberian
chivalric imaginary.
1
Inspiration for what follows has been provided by Anthony Pym, Negotiating the Fron-
tier: Translators and Intercultures in Hispanic History (Manchester: St. Jerome Publishers,
2000).
R. M. Rodrguez Porto / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 219-266 221 [69]
Gardens and Forked Paths: Visions of Courtliness in Medieval Iberia

A weighty tome bearing the title Histoire de lart, published by Albin
Michel in 1904, includes a chapter on Spanish sculpture and painting of
the fourteenth and fteenth centuries. Therein, the author, mile Bertaux,
placed the ceilings of the so-called Hall of Justice (or of Kings) in the Patio
of the Lions of the Alhambra under the rubric of La peinture giottesque
en Castille et en Andalusie.2 He attribuited the paintings to a Castilian
artist trained in the imitation of trecentista novelties, but whose products
were still reminiscent of the miniatures that illustrate the Alfonsine manu-
script corpus. Likewise, Bertaux pointed out the striking similarities
between the ceilings and the illustrations of the Historia Troyana, a lavish
codex produced in 1350 for the Castilian king Pedro I in Seville (Figure 1)
which contains the Spanish translation of the Roman de Troie.3 He did not,
however, pursue this potential line of comparative inquiry, and though his
words have often been quoted by later generations of scholars, the matter
(not to mention its implications) has never been pursued in depth.
Two decades later, Chandler R. Post linked the Grenadine cycle with the
paintings of the fortress of Alcaiz, principal seat of the Order of Calatrava
in the Crown of Aragn, which most scholars date to the rst half of the
fourteenth century (Figure 2).4 Along the same lines, referring to the dark,
2
See mile Bertaux, Peinture et sculpture espagnoles au XIVe et XVe sicles, in His-
toire de lart, vol. III: Le ralisme. Les debuts de la Renaissance, dir. A. Michel (Paris: Armand
Colin, 1903), 754-758. It should be noted that Hall of Justice or of Kings are names
coined in the sixteenth century, after the Castilian conquest, and without relation to the
former Nasrid denomination.
3
Bertaux, Peinture et sculpture espagnoles, 756. This Historia Troyana should be
identied as the Crnica Troyana de Alfonso XI (Escorial, h.I.6). On this lavish and largely
unknown manuscript, see Francisco Mara Tubino, Historia Troyana, cdice historiado
perteneciente a la Cmara de Pedro I. Estudio histrico-crtico, Museo Espaol de Antige-
dades, V (1875), 187-205; Hugo Buchthal, Historia Troiana. Studies in the History of Medi-
eval Secular Illumination (Leiden-London: Brill and Warburg Institute, 1971), 12-15; Pilar
Garca Morencos, Crnica Troyana (Madrid: Editorial Patrimonio Nacional, 1976); Kelvin
M. Parker, ed., La versin de Alfonso XI del Roman de Troie. Ms. H-j-6 del Escorial (Chicago,
IL: Applied Literature Press, 1977); Joaqun Yarza Luaces, Crnica Troyana, in Vestiduras
Ricas. El Monasterio de Las Huelgas y su poca 1170-1340 (Madrid: Patrimonio Nacional,
2005), 142-3; Rosa Mara Rodrguez Porto, The Crnica Troyana de Alfonso XI (Escorial,
h.I.6). A Visual Exemplum on Warfare, Chivalry and Courtliness (forthcoming).
4
See Chandler Rathfon Post, A History of Spanish Painting, vol. 2: The Franco-Gothic
and International Styles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1930), 70-74 (Alcaiz)
and 160-171 (Alhambra).
Figure 1. Crnica Troyana de Alfonso XI (fol. 13v). Troy in Priams times.

Patrimonio Nacional
rm outlines that distinguish the gures and the components of their sur-
roundings, Jos Gudiol Ricart emphasized the calligraphic style of the Hall
of Justice paintings, linking them to decorative programs of Muslim
themes present in such secular buildings as the Torre de Hrcules in Sego-
via, the Alczar of Seville, and several Toledan palaces (Figure 3).5 Jerrilynn
Dodds, on the other hand, concentrated on French sources, suggesting the
mural paintings of the Palais des Papes in Avignon as a likely source of
formal inspiration for the Grenadine ensemble. Likewise, she explored
the possible importance of the repertoire of courtly motifs and imagery
5
Jos Gudiol Ricart, Pintura morisca, in Ars Hispaniae, vol. IX: Pintura gtica (Madrid:
Editorial Plus Ultra, 1955), 48-51 and gs. 34-35.
provided by French ivory caskets as an iconographic source. Indeed, the

only Hispanic comparanda mentioned by Dodds is the gurative orna-
ment of the corpus of stuccoes found in the Seminario Menor in Toledo
(formerly the palace of Ruy Lpez Dvalos) (Figure 4). These, however,
represent an unlikely source of inspiration, for the early date assigned to
them by Doddsthe second half of the thirteenth centuryhas recently
been revised: research by Basilio Pavn Maldonado, Juan Carlos Ruz
Souza and Carmen Rallo Gruss suggests a date sometime during the 1360s
for the stuccoes, making them very nearly contemporary to the Hall of
Justice paintings.6
Figure 2. Paintings of the Castle of Alcaiz (Aragn, ca. 1330-1360s).

Detail of the depiction of the Wild Man and the Maiden. Photo: author
6
See Jerrilynn D. Dodds, The Paintings in the Hall of Justice of the Alhambra, The Art
Bulletin LXI, no. 2 (1979), 186-197, esp. 190. According to her hypothesis, the ceilings
constitute an assemblage of disparate elements without any kind of program or intended
message. See also Juan Carlos Ruz Souza and Carmen Rallo Gruss, El palacio de Ruy
Figure 3. Alczar de Sevilla (ca. 1365). Detail of the stucco frieze in the
Northern Hall of the Patio de las Doncellas. Photo: author
Figure 4. Palacio de Ruy Lpez Dvalos (ca. 1361). Stucco frieze. Photo:
Juan Carlos Ruz Souza
Lpez Dvalos y sus bocetos inditos en la Sinagoga del Trnsito: Estudio de sus yeseras en
el contexto artstico de 1361, Al-Qantara, 20 (1999), 275-298 and 21 (2000), 143-154.
A common dating in the central decades of the fourteenth century, however,

does not account for the anity between these works, vaguely mentioned
in the studies by Bertraux, Post, Gudiol Ricart and Dodds. Independent of
their geographic location, each of these image programs exemplies the
sudden emergence of a profane imaginary of literary inspiration, with nar-
rative ambitions and a predominantly Gothic formal repertoire. Although
it is true that in the rest of Western Europe such characteristics do not
represent a novelty, in the Iberian Peninsula they constitute an except
ion. Some of these examples even demonstrate an unmistakable artistic
kinshipidentical facial types; naturalistic rendering of animals and trees;
calligraphic accents in the depiction of gures and landscapeand a reli-
ance on common iconography.7 As a perfect example of this process, the
theme of the Wild Man and the Damsel, never before represented in the
visual arts in Iberia, appears in the Alczar, the Alhambra (Illustration 15)
and Alcaiz (Figure 2).8
This phenomenon, which reached both Castile and Granada, seems to
nd its origins in the Crnica Troyana (Escorial, h.I.6). Many examples
have almost certainly been lost, but at present the Alhambra ceilings some-
what paradoxically constitute the most lavish and complex cycle of Iberian
mural paintings with chivalric content to be found outside the much-
internationalized Catalonia,9 with the cycle discovered in the castle of
7
Hunting scenes also coincide at the Alczar and the Alhambra, whereas the Wheel of
Fortune is depicted in the Crnica Troyana and Alcaiz. The motif of confronted peacocks
is represented in Tordesillas, the Alczar and Toledo.
8
See also Jos Mara Azcrate Ristori, El tema iconogrco del salvaje, Archivo Espaol
de Arte 81 (1948), 81-99, esp. 84 (he does not mention Alcaiz, almost unknown to schol-
ars before the restoration works of 1953, even if the depiction of this theme is stunningly
similar ot its counterpart in the Alhambra).
9
In Catalua at the end of the thirteenth century, several cycles of mural painting were
produced in order to represent the conquest of Mallorca (1229-1231). Examples are found
in the Salon del Tinell of the Royal Palace and the Casa Aguilar, today in the Museo
Nacional dArt de Catalunya. These cycles are linked to the reign of Jaime II and to the
aristocratic class of Barcelona, many of whom were descendents of the protagonists of the
events narrated in the paintings. See Anna Blasco i Bardas, Les pintures murals del Palau
Reial Mayor de Barcelona (Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona, 1993); Eduardo Carbonell
Esteller and Joan Pons Sureda, Tesoros Medievales del Museo Nacional dArt de Catalunya
(Barcelona: Lunwerg, 1997), 193-202, 378-382. Although these cycles are principally his-
torical in theme, and are thus quite dierent from the cycle found in the Hall of Justice, it
is worth noting the presence, in the Aljafera in Zaragoza, of mural paintings inspired by
the twelfth-century Occitan romance of Jaufr, produced under the patronage of Pedro IV
Alcaiz occupying a rather distant second place.10 Such courtly imagery,

however, is to be found in other media, such as stuccoes, as seen in the
complex of the Alczar of Sevilla, in which stylized ornamentation also
suggests narrative content in a complex composed by individualized scenes
inhabited by a variety of characters placed against a variety of backgrounds
(Figure 3).
Finally, in the Crnica Troyana (Figure 1) as well as in the ceilings of the
Alhambra (Illustration 10), a new sensibility for the representation of
nature can be appreciated, which is perhaps to be explained by the
conuence between an Andalusi tradition which makes of the garden a
privileged courtly space, and the knowledge of contemporary develop-
ments in perspective taking place in France and especially in Italy, as sug-
gested by Bertaux and Dodds. In the case of the stuccoes, the brilliant
polychromy with which they were habitually ornamented would bring
their aesthetic eect closer to miniature illumination or mural painting;
allusions to gardens, moreover, are present in the vegetation that envelops
the gural elements (Figure 4).
Only recently has a comparative analysis of the courtly art developing
on both sides of the Castilian-Grenadine frontier been proposed. Pavn
Maldonado was the rst to undertake an exhaustive examination of
specically Iberian courtly imagery.11 According to his hypothesis, the con-
tinuing activity of Toledan workshops of painters and plasterers provides
(1336-1387). See Manuel Martn Bueno, Gonzalo Borrs Gualis and Luis Franco Lahoz,
La aljafera, 2 vols. (Zaragoza: Cortes de Aragn, 1998), 1:127-129.
10
Though located in Aragn, the Order of Calatrava was administered, at least in the-
ory, by the King of Castile. There are several studies devoted to the paintings, the most
recent of which are Jordi Rovira and Angels Casanova, El complejo pictrico del castillo
de Alcaiz, Al-Qannis 3-4 (1995), 369-402; Mara del Carmen Lacarra Ducay, Las pintu-
ras del Castillo de Alcaiz. Restauracin 2004 (Zaragoza: Diputacin General de Aragn,
2004). Both stress the existence of two or even three dierent pictorial campaigns but only
Barrachina has identied Garca Lpez de Padilla, Maestre de Calatrava, as the mostly
likely patron and planner of the cycle. See Jaime Barrachina, Reconsideraciones sobre las
pinturas del atrio de la iglesia del Castillo de Alcaiz, in Estudios de iconografa medieval
espaola, ed. J. Yarza (Bellaterra: Universidad Autnoma de Barcelona, 1984), 137-194.
Nevertheless, there are still many questions to answer about this pictorial palimpsest. I will
try to solve some of them in Sum sine regno. Literatura y poltica en las pinturas del Cas-
tillo de Alcaiz (in preparation).
11
Basilio Pavn Maldonado, Arte toledano: islmico y mudjar (Madrid: Instituto
Hispano-rabe de Cultura, 1973), 141-275.
the Ariadnes thread that connects the disparate ornamental programs,

both stucco and painted, of the Palace of Tordesillas, the Alczar of Seville,
the Sinagoga del Trnsito and the Patio of the Lions. Indeed, for Pavn
these Toledan workshops were instrumental in the dissemination of recog-
nizably common iconographic repertoires and aesthetic trends throughout
several secular and religious edices from the 1340s to the 1380s, through-
out a vast geographical expanse including such distant outposts as Val-
ladolid and Granada. Despite the naturalistic rendering of human gures,
animals and vegetal interlacewhich Pavn explained as a consequence of
the interaction of Iberian tastes and traditions with imported Gothic
ornamentation, these programs follow indisputable Islamic patterns;
he therefore accorded them the label of Mudjar, implying that they
were the luxurious products of the craftsmanship of populations of Mus-
lims living under Christian rule.12 Pavn even speculated that Pedro I
might have loaned his slaves to the Grenadine Sultan, Muhammad V, a
theory which, though never conrmed by documentary records, would
account for the Western-Christian appearance of the paintings on the
Alhambra ceilings.13
Juan Carlos Ruz Souza and Cynthia Robinson, however, have recently
challenged some of these earlier theories. Their innovative work has opened
new avenues toward a more accurate representation of the dynamics of
artistic interchange in medieval Iberia. Ruz Souza has published exten-
sively on the close relationship between Castilian and Grenadine architec-
tonic experiences in the fourteenth century, oering suggestive insights
concerning the chronologies of the palace/convent of Tordesillas and the
Palace of the Lions.14 On the other hand, Robinson has delved into a
multi-disciplinary Andalusi courtly culture through close readings of the
12
Pavn states that esta visin decorativa del mundo es algo exclusivo de las pobla-
ciones mudjares e intransferible a las cristianas, Pavn Maldonado, Arte toledano, 236.
13
Pavn Maldonado, Arte toledano, 229-266. He suggested the chronological frame of
1362-1369 for the ceilings.
14
In addition to the article mentioned in note 6, see Juan Carlos Ruz Souza, Santa
Clara de Tordesillas: nuevos datos para su cronologa y estudio. La relacin entre Pedro I y
Muhammad V, Reales Sitios 130 (1996), 32-40; El patio del Vergel del Real Monasterio
de Santa Clara de Tordesillas y la Alhambra de Granada: Reexiones para su estudio,
Al-Qantara 19 (1998), 315-332. See also his Castilla y Al-Andalus. Arquitecturas aljamia-
das y otros grados de asimilacin, Anuario del Departamento de Historia y Teora del Arte 16
(2004), 17-44.
art and poetry of the Taifa kingdoms and the story of Bayd wa Riyd
contained in the MS Vaticano, Ar. Ris. 368 (c. rst third of the thirteenth
century), isolated testimony of Andalusi illuminated manuscript produc-
tion dealing with secular topics.15 Both Ruz Souza and Robinson have
highlighted the problems posed by inherited approaches, namely the
compartmentalization of disciplines and objects of study, as well as the
misunderstanding of these artifacts that occurs when they are restrictively
associated with ethnic or religious communities and their meaning arbi-
trarily stabilized in order to conform to equally arbitrary and abstract coor-
dinates.16 A comprehensive and comparative analysis, however, of courtly
edices, paintings, stuccos and illuminated manuscripts from the Iberian
realmwhether Castilian or Grenadineis still lacking.
Medieval Iberian art, particularly in its secular, courtly manifestation,
presents distinctive traits that starkly dierentiate it from its Northern
European counterpart. First, interaction between Castilian-Leonese and
Andalusi societies beginning at an early datefrom at least the ninth
centuryled to uid pan-Iberian . . . practices and a well-established
15
See Cynthia Robinson, In praise of song. The Making of Courtly Culture in Al-Andalus
and Provence, 1005-1134 A. D. (Leiden: Brill, 2002); Medieval Andalusian Courtly Culture
in the Mediterranean. Hadith Bayd wa Riyd (London: Routledge, 2006); Cynthia Robin-
son and Leyla Rouhi, eds., Under the Inuence. Questioning the Comparative in Medieval
Castile (Leiden: Brill, 2005).
16
This trend has been accurately analyzed by Cynthia Robinson and Leyla Rouhi in
their introductory essay to Under the Inuence: Iberian art historical practice continues to
be encumbered by traditional questions of provenance, dating and particularly inuence
driven by a largely unquestioning acceptance of Jewish, Muslim and Christian as stable
stylistic categories. Although fashionable in many areas of critical practice, the concept of
fragmentation ( . . .) has been taken in an unfortunately literal sense, and the perceived
combination of religiously stabilized fragments has been read consistently in terms of either
agonistic or naively appreciative processes of appropriation and deployment. This situation
is also complicated by the fact that practices of inquiry in the elds of Islamic and West-
ern medieval art are, at present, so radically dierent (7). Along the same lines, it is always
useful to re-read the lucid reections of Thomas F. Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain in the
Early Middle Ages. Comparative Perspectives on Social and Cultural Formation (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1979), 3-5 and 13-15 (particularly concerning questions of
terminology). The case of the stuccoes is paradigmatic because they have been analyzed
exclusively in terms of abstract ornament and detached from other related artistic supports,
such as tapestries or wall paintings, two methodological decisions which have resulted in
their undermining as medium for the development of visual narratives. The aforemen-
tioned studies by Robinson and Ruiz Souza are fortunate exceptions.
pan-Iberian aesthetic that informed consistent patterns of conspicuous

consumption throughout the thirteenth century.17 Far from exotic, these
syncretic practices are tokens of a common courtly culture which involved
a wide range of artifacts including textiles, ivories, jewelry, furniture, orna-
mental repertoire, as well as, certainly, literary creations, customs and a
general courtly imaginary. Discrete elements of this composite and uid
culture traveled back and forth for centuries across ever-changing borders,
with their original ethnic or confessional associations ultimately being
erased after centuries of shared use and continuous re-elaboration. They
came to form a common language, and were deployed and understood as
such by patrons and audiences both Muslim and Christian.18 In Iberia, the
degree of mutual assimilation was much higher and the duration of this
process much longer than in other areas of the Mediterranean marked by
the conuence and interaction of diverse cultures, such as Sicily or the
Holy Land.19 The extent of this cultural interaction, thus, forces us to con-
ceive an alternative way to conceptualize the Iberian phenomenon, mov-
ing from a focus on the appropriation of isolated elements to a broad
analysis of the way in which social and cultural structures were aected
and modied by a constant and multifaceted (rather than episodic and
17
See Mara Judith Feliciano, Muslim Shrouds for Christian Kings? A Reassesment of
Andalus Textiles in Thirteenth-century Castilian Life and Ritual, in Under the Inuence,
101-131, esp. 104 and 112. For what might be conceived as the formative stage of this
process, see Robinson, In Praise of Song.
18
This is the cultural landscape portrayed in Under the Inuence. See also Robinson, In
Praise of Song, where the author cogently argues that the Occitan courtly ethos was forged
following the Andalus model provided by the taifa courts of Northern Iberia. Cf. Teresa
Prez Higuera, Objetos e imgenes de al-Andalus (Barcelona: Lunwerg, 1994); Al-Andalus y
Castilla. El arte de una larga coexistencia, in Historia de una cultura, vol. II: La singularidad
de Castilla, ed. A. Garca Simn (Valladolid: Junta de Castilla y Len, 1995), 9-59; eadem,
El mudjar, una opcin artstica en la corte de Castilla y Len, in Historia del Arte en
Castilla y Len, vol. 4: Arte Mudjar, eds. J. J. Rivera Blanco, F. J. de la Plaza Santiago and
S. Marchn Fiz (Valladolid: mbito, 1994), 129-222.
19
See William Tronzo, Regarding Norman Sicily: Art, Identity and Court Culture in
the Later Middlle Ages, Rmisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana 35 (2003-2004),
101-114; Joanna H. Drell, Cultural syncretism and ethnic identity: The Norman con-
quest of Southern Italy and Sicily, Journal of Medieval History 25.3 (1999), 187-202. For
the Holy Land, see Daniel H. Weiss and Lisa Mahoney eds., France and the Holy Land:
Frankish Culture at the End of the Crusades (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University
Press, 2003).
isolated) encounter with the other.20 This analysis, moreover, must not
only be directed toward the production of a myriad of dierent artistic
artefacts, but also must consider the constant generation of new functions
and meanings for those that already existed.
The diachronic dimension of this process of meaning-making and the
transitorial condition of courtly artifacts is the issue I would like to address
in the present article. It is my aim to focus, less on the artifacts themselves
than on the drama of reception, that it is to say, less on the works consid-
ered as disembodied fragments or assemblages of disparate elements suit-
able for dissection than on the whole they form with the contextand
I intend for this term to be taken in the broadest possible sensethat
explains them.21
The unexpected death of Alfonso XI at the siege of Gibraltar brought an
abrupt halt to the territorial expansion of the Castilian Crown and its suc-
cessful military policy in its contest with the Marinids for the control of
the Strait. Only ten years following the victory of El Salado (1340), treaties
were signed with Ysuf I of Granada. This was the beginning of a long
period of peace between the two kingdoms, disturbed only by the inevita-
ble succession of low-intensity hostilities along the frontier.22 Certain his-
torical data oers particularly eloquent testimony to the climate of cultural
interchange generated by the end of hostilities between the two kingdoms.
Jewish physician and astronomer Ibrahm Ibn Zarzr moved from the
court of Fez to Castile during Pedro Is reign. He served his new Christian
sovereign as a valued emissary in Grenadine and North African aairs
and, after a certain time, passed to the Nasrid court.23 There, he met the
20
Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain, 5-13, 277-298.
21
In the end, a traditional interpretation of Mudejarismo does not render the style a
sum of its parts Feliciano, Muslim Shrouds, p. 108. On the other hand, I take the expre-
sion drama of reception from Tronzo, Regarding Norman Sicily, 108.
22
Rachel Ari, LEspagne musulmane au temps des Nasrides (Paris: Boccard, 1972), 102-
121. See also Miguel ngel Ladero Quesada, Historia de un pas islmico, 1232-1571
(Madrid: Gredos, 1989), 150-165; Angus Mackay, Frontier religion and culture, in Love,
Religion and Politics in the Fiftheen-century Spain, eds. I. Macpherson and A. Mackay (Lei-
den: Brill, 1998), 157; Manuel Gonzlez Jimnez, Peace and War in the frontier of Gra-
nada, in Medieval Spain. Culture, Conict and Coexistence. Studies in honour of Angus
Mackay (Houndmills: Macmillan, 2002), pp. 160-174; Manuel Garca Fernndez, Sobre
la alteridad en la frontera de Granada. Una aproximacin al anlisis de la guerra y la paz,
siglos XIII-XV, Revista da Facultade de Letras. Histria, III srie, 6 (2005), 213-235.
23
Abdessalem Cheddadi, A propos dune ambassade dIbn Khaldun daprs de Pierre le
(in)famous Grenadine vizir, Ibn al-Khatb, who explicitly states that

another Jewish emissary from Toledo, Ysuf ibn Waqqr, provided him
with a copy of a (translated?) book made for the king Alfonso containing
the history of the kings of Castile. This source was used by the prolic
polymath in his account of the deeds of the Nasrid rulers who came to
power before reaching puberty.24 Ibn al-Khatb was a frequent guest at the
Marinid court, and his intense diplomatic activity was paralleled by the
missions that the distinguished historian Ibn Khaldn accomplished in
Granada as guest of the Sultan Muhammad V. In a brief autobiographical
note, he refers to his interview with Pedro I in Seville (1362), undertaken
in order to renew the truces between Castile and the Maghrebi kingdoms.
On that occasion, the king oered him the chance to recover his ancestors
properties in the capital city if he would agree to take up a position in the
sovereigns employ.25
Prisoners as well as diplomats traveled across the border. In 1361 Pedro
declared war on the Rey Bermejo (Muhammad VI), who had usurped the
Nasrid throne two years earlier from his half-brother Muhammad V, vassal
and ally of the Castilian sovereign.26 The latter left his North African exile
Cruel: Contactes politiques et culturales entre Chrtiens et Musulmans dans lAndalousie

mdivale, HesperisTamuda, 20-21 (1983), 5-23, esp. 7 and 14-15. According to Ched-
dadi, Jewish scholars had fewer problems in crossing borders than did their Castilian,
Maghrebi or Grenadine counterparts.
24
Ibn al-Khatb, Kitb aml al-alm, ed. and trans. R. Castrillo (Madrid: Instituto
Hispano-rabe de Cultura, 1983). Melchor Martnez Antua, Una versin rabe com-
pendiada de la Estoria de Espaa de Alfonso el Sabio, Al-Andalus 1 (1933), 105-154; Justin
Stearns, Two passages in Ibn al-Khatbs account of the kings of Christian Iberia, Al-
Qantara, 25:1 (2004), 157-182. On Ibn al-Khatb, see Jorge Lirola Delgado et alli, Ibn
al-Jatb in Biblioteca de Al-Andalus, ed. J. M. Puerta Vlchez and J. Lirola Delgado, 7 vols.
(Almera: Fundacin Ibn Tufayl de Estudios rabes, 2004), 3:643-698.
25
See Ibn Khaldn, Le Voyage dOccident et dOrient, ed. and trans. A. Cheddadi (Paris:
Sindbad, 1980), 91-92. For Cheddadi, this was une chose tout fair ordinaire, given the
usual circulation des lettres, Pedro behaved then as comme nimporte quel prince
musulman, Cheddadi, A propos dune ambassade, 6, 8 and 13. Ibn Khaldn included
also in his Kitb al-Ibar [History of the Magrib Dynasties] a chapter on the Sons of Alfonso
of Galicia, kings of Spain after the Goths during the age of the Muslims and the histories
of those Franks who neighbored them and the Basques and the Portuguese and a summary of
their history, Aziz Al-Azmeh Mortal Enemies, Invisible Neighbours: Northerners in
Andalus Eyes, in The Legacy of Muslim Spain, ed. Salma K. Jayyusi (Leiden: Brill, 1992),
259-72, esp. 266. Cf. Stearns, Two passages, 167-171.
26
Pedro also guaranteed Muhammad asylum in Fez by means of pressuring the Sultan
of Morocco. His exile in Fez prolonged from 1359 to 1361 or even to the begining of 1362.
in August of that same year and traveled to meet Pedro in Seville. There,
Pedro treated his guest with hospitality and kindness and oered him
30,000 gold dinars to help to defray household expenses.27 In 1362, the
Bermejo took Diego Lpez de Padilla (Master of Calatrava and brother
of Pedros mistress, Mara de Padilla) prisoner, though he only spent four
days in the Alhambra, enjoying the grandes honrras oered by the ille-
gitimate Sultan in an attempt to use Padillas inuence to persuade Pedro
to renounce his support of the legitimate Nasrid king.28 But the machina-
tions of Muhammad VI, the Bermejo, were not successful. Pedro lured him
to Seville under the pretext of a truce to be signed and then murdered him,
along with his entire retinue.29 Subsequently, Muhammad V proceeded
with the construction of his palaces (to which we shall shortly return), and
oered aid to his ally, Pedro, during the civil war against Enrique of Trast-
mara. It is during this period (1362-1369) that the exchange of artisans
between the two courts proposed by Pavn would have taken place.30 As a
result, Christian paintings would have decorated the Hall of Justice and,
inversely, an Islamized environment would have served as backdrop for
Clara Estow, Pedro I of Castile 1350-1369 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), p. 206. See also Antonio
Pelez Rovira, El viaje ntimo de Ibn Marzq a travs de los relatos de Ibn al-Jatb e Ibn
Jaldn, in Entre Oriente y Occidente. Ciudades y viajeros en la Edad Media, ed. J. P. Monfer-
rer Sala and M. D. Rodrguez Gmez (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2005), esp.
147-148; Ari, LEspagne musulmane, 105-112.
27
Account oered by both Ibn Khaldn and Ibn al-Khatb. Ahmad Mujtar Al-Abbadi,
El reino de Granada en la poca de Muhammad V (Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Islmicos,
1973), 45-48. However, Ayalas chronicle and Islamic versions of the same events are in
contradiction on this point. According to the Chancellor, Pedros motives for helping
Muhammad had more to do with the potential threat of an alliance between the Bermejo
king and Pedro IV of Aragn. Estow also considers this hypothesis the more likely. Estow,
Pedro I, 207.
28
See Pero Lpez de Ayala, Crnica del Rey don Pedro, ed. C. L. Wilkins and H. M. Wilkins
(Madison: Seminar of Medieval Studies, 1985), 1361, Chapter 2, p. 126. Cf. Estow, Pedro I,
209.
29
Pero Lpez de Ayala, Crnica, 1361, Chapters 4-6, 126-128. Ayala also notes that
Pedro seized the jewels (inventoried in the text) the Bermejo king had brought with
him, although this seems to be a detail included primarily in order to portray Pedro as a
greedy man.
30
Ari, LEspagne musulmane, pp. 112-121. Pavn Maldonado, Arte toledano, 159 and
239-275. As noted earlier, there are no documentary records concerning this supposed
exchange. Only an inscription on the wooden doors of the Sala de Emabajadores of the
royal Alczar in Seville alludes to a Toledan workshop.
the Sultn don Pedros majestic displays of power, as claimed by the Kuc
inscriptions in the Alczar of Seville.31
Summarized in this fashion, political and cultural relations between
Castile and Granada seem to have reached and unusual degree of intensity
during the middle of the fourteenth century. A closer scrutiny, however,
suggests that this statement should perhaps be nuanced by placing Pedro I
and Muhammad Vs reigns against the larger backdrop of Castilian-Grenadine
diplomatic relations of the entire century that had preceded this particular
historical and cultural juncture. The founder of the Nasrid dynasty,
Muhammad al-Ahmar, was knighted by Alfonso X himself in 1252 and
signed several of the Learned Kings privilegios rodados as his vassal; it is
thus clear that he was fully integrated into the administrative apparatus of
the Castilian Crown.32 It is important to note, however, that relations were
no less intense during more conictive periods. In 1272 Alfonsos rebel-
lious brother Felipe sought refuge in Granada and even was entrusted with
the command of Ibn al-Ahmars troops. At the end of his life, Alfonso also
signed an alliance with the Moroccan emir in a desperate attempt to miti-
gate the eects of Grenadine support of his traitorous son, Sancho, in his
eorts to seize power.33 The cost, however, of the peace treaty (on whose
validity, it should be noted, the historical record casts considerable doubt)
between Sancho and the Marinids who supported his fathers cause was
exorbitant: in exchange for his support, the Marinid Sultan demanded
the conscation and delivery into his hands of every Arabic book found
in Castile.34
31
Rafael Cmez Ramos, El Alczar del rey don Pedro (Seville: Diputacin Provincial,
2006 [1996]), 57-58.
32
Garca Gmez considers the thirteenth century a period of Christian inuence, and
contrasts it with the period of Oriental inuence which would have begun in Muham-
mad Vs second reign. Garca Gmez, Cinco poetas musulmanes, 175-176.
33
Moreover (and more unexpectedly), the intricacies of Alfonsine international politics
included an attempt to gain the support of Mamluks for an intervention in the Holy Land.
Pedro Martnez Montlvez, Relaciones de Alfonso X de Castilla con el sultn mameluco
Baybars y sus sucesores, Al-Qantara 27 (1962), 343-376.
34
Mercedes Gaibrois, Historia del reinado de Sancho IV de Castilla, 3 vols. (Madrid: Ed.
Voluntad, 1927), 1:75. Gutirrez Baos has emphasized the signicance of this loss for
Castilian culture, but only in the scientic realm. It could have also aected that of courtly
literature. See Fernando Gutirrez Baos, Las empresas artsticas de Sancho IV el Bravo (Sala-
manca: Junta de Castilla y Len, 1996), 202.
Contacts between the Christian Peninsular kingdoms, al-Andalus and

even the North African monarchies were always intense in the later Middle
Ages. What, then, is the true signicance of the supposed friendship between
Pedro and Muhammad that scholarship, practically without exception, has
accepted uncritically?35 Without a doubt, Pedro and Muhammad had no
choice but to become the closest of allies in the arena of Iberian and North
African aairs. Their respective survival was at stake: both had to face the
rebellion of their half-brothers and were kept constantly on guard as they
attempted to negotiate the complex balance of power between the Penin-
sular kingdoms and the leading monarchies of their respective areas of
inuence. The accuracy of this statement could be tested by considering
Muhammads movements following Pedros death. He sanguinely took
advantage of the nal days of the civil war with the conquest of Algeciras
(1369)indeed, it is dicult to ascertain whether he followed Pedros
orders at all, as in the case of the seizure of Jan (1368)and once Enrique
of Trastmara was secured on the throne, the Nasrid sovereign, shrewd
politician that he was, managed to secure truces to great advantage for
Granada.36
The supposed maurolia of the Castilian king was one of the argu-
ments used by his detractorsAyala among themin order to sully his
royal image, but no veriable historical fact seems to sustain the idea that
Pedro behaved any dierently than had his ancestors.37 His contacts with
35
Even Clara Estow succumbs to the seduction of the myth in her otherwise level-
headed and balanced biography of the Castilian king. Ruiz Souza qualies it as amistad
llena de intereses, Ruz Souza, El patio del vergel, 328.
36
Muhammad also had sent envoys to Enrique in 1366, after Pedros ight to Bayona,
to assure the Castilian of his friendship. Estow, Pedro I, 256.
37
Maurolia, a term coined by Cirot and employed by Menndez Pidal as well, is still
in use, although it does not have an accurate denition. It refers to a vague fascination
with the other in the imitation of the luxurious way of life of the Andalus nobles and
Sultans, and sometimes even respect for their moral values, but excludes the existence of
any real common culture. See, for example, Amelia Garca Valdecasas and Rafael Beltrn
Llavador, La maurolia como ideal caballeresco en la literatura cronstica de los siglos XIV
y XV, Epos 5 (1989), 115-140; Prez Higuera, El mudjar como opcin esttica en la
Corte de Castilla y Len. Clara Estow considers Pedros reputation as protector of Muslim
and Jewish minorities to be undeserved. Only his absence of crusading zealunlike his
fatherand his preference for expanding Castilian borders at the expense of Aragn could
be interpreted as a change in the politics followed by his predecesors. See the chapter
Ennobler of Moors and Jews in Estow, Pedro I, 155-179.
Muhammad were indeed continuous, but were most often mediated by

emissaries and diplomatic correspondence. Pedro and Muhammad were
well aware of each others activities but documentary records only mention
one or two personal encounters, even fewer than those that occurred
between Pedro and the Rey Bermejo, a situation which, of course, can
hardly compare with the frequent face-to-face encounters that occurred
between Pedro IV or Alfonso IV of Aragn and Pedro I of Portugal.38 In
fact, the most revealing proof of their rapport is the depiction of the
emblem of the Castilian chivalric Order of the Scarf in the ceilings of the
Hall of Justice.39 It is not my intention to negate the existence of intense
cultural relations across the Castilian-Grenadine border, but rather to but-
tress this assertion with more solid, systematic arguments than those of a
debatable friendship and an undeniable but predictable diplomatic corre-
spondence. It is risky to project modern notions about friendship onto
the social and diplomatic relations of that time and give in to the much-
romanticized clichs of the nineteenth century, or to the modern myth of
convivencia, both equally distorting.40 In doing so, individuals are detached
from the intercultural network of relations sketched in this essay and par-
ticular artifacts are extracted from the very frame of genres and traditions
that explain their form, content and function.41
38
Ayala only mentions that Pedro and Muhammad entered Crdoba together in 1368
and, as noted earlier, makes no reference to the stay of the Nasrid king in Seville recorded
by Ibn al-Khatb and Ibn Khaldn. Pero Lpez de Ayala, Crnica, ao 1368, Chapters 4-5,
186-187. The Chancellor, however, does describe the reception of the Rey Bermejo and his
retinue in the Alczar of Seville in 1362 (see notes 28 and 29). On the other hand, the
preserved correspondence between Muhammad and the Marinid court also leaves no doubt
of the ease with which information could be transmitted to the opposite shore of the strait.
See Mariano Gaspar Remiro, Correspondencia diplomtica entre Granada y Fez. Siglo
XIV, Revista del Centro de Estudios Histricos de Granada y su Reino, II, 1912, 151-190 and
253-265; III (1913) 5-23, 77-96, 178-200 and 248-274; IV (1914) 1-31, 105-135, 205-
252, 285-365, V (1915) 1-55, 137-183 and 245-258.
39
Pavn Maldonado, Escudos y reyes en el Cuarto de los Leones de la Alambra,
Al-Andalus 35 (1970), 179-197; Notas sobre el escudo de la Orden de la Banda en los
Palacios de Don Pedro y Muhammad V, Al-Andalus 37 (1972), 229-232. See my remarks
below concerning the chivalric imagery displayed in the paintings and its potential signi-
cance in the decade of the 1360s, as well as the essay by Ana Echevarra in this volume.
40
Rebeca Sanmartn Bastida, La imagen del rey don Pedro en la segunda mitad del
siglo XIX, eHumanista 1 (2001), 135-157 [Information retrieved from the site on 29
September 2007]. Estow revises these biased historiographical commonplaces in the intro-
duction of her book. See Estow, Pedro I, xiii-xxxvii.
41
The recent article devoted to the Alczar of Seville by Ruggles is paradigmatic in this
It is useful here to remember Ruz Souzas remarks concerning the

impact of the immigrants who took refuge in the Castilian court during
Muhammads exile of 1359-1361. Among them were scholarssuch as
Ibn Zrzr, mentioned earlierand certainly artisans searching for com-
missions in a more propitious environment.42 This hypothesis would
explain the transfer of concrete formal solutions, such as the patio bor-
dered by twin pavilions that Ruz Souza cogently argues was developed in
the Palace of Tordesillas and reelaborated in the Courtyard of the Lions.43
This circulation of artisans, however, would not be possible without the
well-established demand for their labor. In formal terms, a simple exchange
of artisans does not suce to explain the strong resemblances between
such dierent media as the Alhambras cycle of paintings, the Crnica Troy-
ana, the stuccos in the Alczar of Seville and the wall paintings in Alcaiz.
In terms of iconography, the sophisticated manipulation of a shared pan-
European chivalric corpus evidenced in all of these examplesparticularly
in the Crnica Troyana and the Alhambra ceilings, to be discussed in detail
in the following pagesbetokens a deep-rooted knowledge of these texts
and their iconographic traditions in both Castile and Granada. Nor is mere
chance a sucient explanation for the production of these four image pro-
grams, with their striking similarities as well as their important dierences.
Rather, we must turn to a slightly earlier periodto the reign of Alfonso XI
(1312-1350)in order to witness the decisive episode in the consolidation
of a distinctive Castilian courtliness around a textual corpus, a recognizable
aesthetic and a vocabulary of political gestures of calculated signicance.
Alfonso XI was proclaimed king when he was only one year old. Until
1325, when he assumed his majority, the aged queen Mara de Molina
(d. 1321)Sancho IVs widow and Alfonsos grandmotherhad charge
both of the childs education and of the preservation of his interests vis--
vis an ambitious nobility. It was in this context that the rst Castilian
products of chivalric ction were written. These translations of French
sense. See D. Fairchild Ruggles, The Alczar of Seville and Mudjar Architecture, Gesta
XLIII/2 (2004), 87-98.
42
Ruz Souza, El patio del vergel, 329.
43
Ruz Souza, Santa Clara de Tordesillas, Cf. Fernando Gutirrez Baos, Doa
Leonor de Guzmn y los palacios de Tordesillas: propuestas para una revisin, Reales Sitios
162 (2004), 2-19. Gutirrez Baos has convincingly nuanced Ruz Souzas hypothesis, sug-
gesting a date for parts of the complex (the Capilla Dorada and the baths) as early as the
lifetimes of Alfonso XI and Leonor de Guzmn.
texts, known in Iberia long before through oral transmission, facilitated

the denitive acclimatization of the ethic and aesthetic universe of chivalry
in Castile. But these texts were in no way passive copies of their originals;
rather, they were carefully crafted with an eye toward the diusion of a
cultural and political model both secular and religious in naturetheir
diusion promoted, on the one hand, an ideal of strong royal authority
and, on the other, a rigid and doctrinaire orthodoxy.44
When the young sovereign nally took the reins of the kingdom, he
emphasized the secular side of these narratives for his own purposes, those
of creating strong bonds between the courtly nobility, the urban militias
and the literate ocials of his administration using chivalric imaginary and
values as a sort of social mortar. For this task, the king found fundamental
rhetorical resources, not only in the translation of French texts (as had his
grandmother before him) but also in such new indigenous creations as the
Amads and the Libro del Caballero Cifar,45 and above all in visual images.
Alfonso seems to have been well aware of the potential of images and pub-
lic gestures for manufacturing an ideological program and then selling it
to its intended audience. An excellent example of this is found in the the-
atrical ceremonies organized in 1332 for his knighting and coronation in
the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela and the royal monastery of Las
44
This subtle ideology has been denominated Molinismo by Gmez Redondo, given
the main role of Mara de Molina in its conception. See Fernando Gmez Redondo, Histo-
ria de la prosa medieval castellana, vol. I: La creacin del discurso prosstico: el entramado
cortesano (Madrid: Ctedra, 1997), 856-862. See also Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Literary
Translation and its Social Conditioning in the Middle Ages: Four Spanish Romance Texts
of the thirteenth Century, Yale French Studies 51 (1974), 205-222; and, above all, Jess
Rodrguez Velasco, Invencin y consecuencias de la caballera, in Josef Fleckenstein, ed.,
La caballera y el mundo caballeresco (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 2006), xi-lvii (xvi-xxiv); Carlos
Heusch, La translation chevaleresque dans la Castille mdivale: entre modelisation et
stratgie discursive ( props du ms. Escorial h.I.13), Cahiers dtudes hispaniques medieva-
les 28 (2005), 307-339.
45
The dating of the Cifar continues to be the subject of much debate. While Gmez
Redondo situates it at the beginning of the fourteenth century, implying its connection to
the court of the queen Mara de Molina, Rodrguez Velasco has read it as the reaction of
the upper echeleons of the aristocracy to the new chivalric ideology of Alfonso XI. See
Gmez Redondo, Historia de la prosa medieval, 2: 1371-1459, esp. 1457-1459; Jess
Rodrguez Velasco, El Libro del Cauallero Zifar en la edad de la virtud, La Cornica,
27 (1999), 167-186.
Huelgas de Burgos, respectively.46 As visual evidence of his pre-eminence

over his subjects, Alfonso rst received the espaldarazo, a ritual sword blow,
from a wooden image of the Apostle Saint James, patron of Castile, com-
plete with articulated joints in order to facilitate movement. Subsequently,
he placed the royal crown upon his own head, refusing clerical interference
and, thus, suggesting that his royal legitimacy resided more in his military
prowess than in any sanction oered by the church. Furthermore, the
chronicles suggest that this auspicious occasion also witnessed the founda-
tion of the Order of the Scarf, initially conceived as a sort of pretorian
guard for the king.47 The importance of these carefully choreographed per-
formances for later developments in artistic practice should not be under-
estimated. Indeed, the Burgalese solemnities may have served as inspiration
for the Libro de los Caballeros de la Orden de Santiago (ca. 1330-1340), the
earliest armorial found in Castile, which contains the portraits and heral-
dic bearings of the members of this brotherhood of urban knights.48 Its
46
The Cistercian convent of Las Huelgas was founded by Alfonso VIII and his wife
Leonor of Aquitaine, daughter of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Her Norman origins
have been linked to the introduction of the Angevin style into the fabric of the monastery.
Concerning the royal couple and Las Huelgas, see Roco Snchez Ameijeiras, El ementerio
real de Alfonso VIII en Las Huelgas de Burgos, Smata 10 (1998), 77-109; Rose Walker,
Leonor of England, Plantagenet Queen of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, and her Founda-
tion of the Cistercian Abbey of Las Huelgas. In Imitation of Fontevraud?, Journal of Medi-
eval History 31 (2005), 346-368.
47
The ceremonies of knighting and coronation are described in the Crnica de Alfonso XI
and in the Poema de Alfonso Onceno and their political signicance has been analyzed in
detail by Peter Linehan, Ideologa y liturgia en el reinado de Alfonso XI, in Gnesis medi-
eval del estado moderno: Castilla y Navarra, 1250-1370, ed. A. Rucquoi (Valladolid: mb-
ito, 1987), 229-243. The Poema (written in 1348) informs us that many nobles were
knighted by the king that day. See Poema de Alfonso Onceno, ed., J. de Victorio (Madrid:
Ctedra, 1991), stanzas 394-395, 120. Keen believed that the Banda could be considered
as the rst chivalric order, even earlier than the Order of the Garter founded by Edward III
of England, although it is dicult to be specic about dates. Maurice Keen, Chivalry (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984) (I quote the Spanish translation: La caballera
(Barcelona, Ariel, 1986), 239). These statutes are preserved in the ms. Espagnol 33 of the
Biliothque National de France and transcribed by Georges Daumet, LOrde castillan de
LEcharpe, Bulletin Hispanique 25 (1923), 5-32. Cf. Jess Rodrguez Velasco, Writing the
Institution: The Scarf of Castile (forthcoming); see, again, Ana Echevarras essay in the
present collection.
48
Libro de los Caballeros de la Cofrada de Santiago (Burgos, Archivo Municipal). Its
miniatures have been attributed to the same workshop that produced the Libro de la Coro-
nacin (Escorial, &.III.3), an ordo originally intended for use in the coronation ceremony;
possible impact, moreover, on Grenadine and North African aristocratic

audiences should not be discounted. An eloquent corroboration of the
interest generated in the enemyand I use this word deliberately, given
that the event in question occurred during time of warby these deliber-
ately spectacular practices is found in the petition to view the luxurious
Castilian real (royal camp or headquarters) presented by emissaries of the
king of Granada during the siege of Algeciras.49
Alfonso XI was also an assiduous patron of the visual arts. Though he
scarcely contributed to the ongoing construction of the most important
Castilian cathedralsBurgos, Toledo, Len, Oviedohe was particularly
attentive to secular and courtly commissions at his palaces in Crdoba
(1328), Tordesillas and Seville (ca. 1340s), as well as the revitalization of
the royal scriptorium through the revision of unnished projects left by
the Learned King, such as the Estoria de Espanna and the General Estoria,
as well as the implementation of new commissions, namely the Crnica
Troyana.50 This lavish manuscript contains the anonymous Spanish trans-
lation of the Roman de Troie, a French poem composed by Benot de
Sainte-Maure (ca. 1165), prototype of the roman dantiquit and one of
the earliest jewels of Romance literature, known in the Iberian Peninsula
early on.51 Its narration begins with the voyage of the Argonauts and
nishes with the return of the Greeks to their lands after the fall of Troy. It
it was ultimately discarded and perhaps for that reason left unnished. See Faustino Menn-
dez Pidal de Navascus, El libro de la cofrada de Santiago: caballera medieval burgalesa
(Madrid: Direccin General de Bellas Artes y Archivos, 1987).
49
Crnica de Alfonso XI [Biblioteca de Autores Espaoles vol. 66. Crnicas of Kings de
Castilla: desde Alfonso El Sabio hasta los Catlicos Fernando e Isabel], C. Rosell ed. (Madrid:
Imprenta Sucesores de Hernando, 1919, 174-392), Chapter CCC, 365. This anecdote is
also related in Ruz Souza, Castilla y Al-Andalus, 28.
50
Concerning Oviedo, see Mara del Carmen de Len-Sotelo Casado and Esther
Gonzlez Crespo, Itinerario de Alfonso XI en el perodo de 1344-1350, En la Espaa
Medieval 5 (1986), 575-589, esp. 580. About the alczares, see Rafael Cmez Ramos, El
Alczar del rey don Pedro; and the articles by Ruz Souza and Gutirrez Baos mentioned in
note 43. Concerning the royal scriptoria, see Gmez Redondo, Historia de la prosa medieval;
Diego Cataln, De Alfonso X al Conde de Barcelos. Cuatro ensayos de historiografa Peninsular
(Madrid: Gredos, 1962); Jess Domnguez Bordona, Ars Hispaniae, vol. 18: Miniatura
(Madrid: Plus Ultra, 1955); Rosa Mara Rodrguez Porto, Introduccin al estudio de la
Crnica Troyana de Alfonso XI (Escorial, h.I.6): Cultura libraria y libros iluminados en Cas-
tilla (1284-1369) (Unpublished M.A. thesis).
51
It is certainly possible that the Roman de Troie was known in Castile at a very early
date, given that Leonor de Castilla ( 1214), wife of Alfonso VIII, was the daughter of
Leonor of Aquitaine and Henry II, original dedicatees of the text. See Antonio Garca
was used as a source for the Libro de Alexandre and by the historiographic
workshop of Alfonso X for the composition of some sections of the second
and third parts of the General Estoria. It circulated in dierent versions,
both in Galician and Castilian, until this luxurious regal copy signalled its
ocial sanction for the court.52
As an artistic enterprise, the Crnica Troyana nds its sole precedent in
the Gran Conquista de Ultramar (Madrid, BN MS 1187), a codex on the
Crusades cycle commissioned by Sancho IV (d. 1295) but ultimately left
unnished.53 At rst sight it might seem strange that Hispanic chivalric
imaginary found its rst visual manifestations not in illustrations most
directly related to the new ctional models being adoptedArthurian
materials and their Hispanic derivations, such as Amads54, but in works
Solalinde, Las versiones espaolas del Roman de Troie, Revista de Filologa Espaola, 3:2
(1916), 121-163; Ramn Lorenzo, ed.Crnica Troiana (A Corua: Fundacin Pedro Barri
de la Maza, 1985); Helena de Carlos Villamarn, Os autmatas da cmara de Eytor, Verba
16 (1989): 135-143; Aquiles en Portugal: un aspecto de las versiones Peninsulares del
Roman de Troie, Evphrosine, nova srie, XX (1992): 365-377; Juan Casas Rigall, La materia
de Troya en las letras romances del siglo XIII hispano (Santiago: Universidad de Santiago de
Compostela, 1999); and Claudia dAmbruoso, Per una edizione critica della Crnica Troy-
ana promossa da Alfonso XI, Troianalexandrina, 7 (2007): 9-143.
52
Ramn Lorenzo, Helena de Carlos and Juan Casas have demonstrated that a Galician
translation was the rst of the Hispanic versions of the Roman de Troie; from it was derived
the so-called Historia Troyana Polimtrica (ca. 1270), preserved in two fragmentary manu-
scripts, and the version of Alfonso XI, from which, in turn, derives the Galician translation
found in MS 10233 of the Biblioteca Nacional. Another bilingual version, in Castilian and
Galician (Santander: Biblioteca Menndez Pelayo, MS 325, sign. top. M/ 558), whose
illustration program was never completed, completes the labyrinthine textual panorama.
53
On the Gran Conquista de Ultramar (also known as Grant Estoria de Ultramar), see
Fernando Gutirrez Baos, Las empresas artsticas de Sancho IV el Bravo (Salamanca: Junta
de Castilla y Len, 1997), 223-232; Csar Domnguez Prieto, La Grant Estoria de Ultra-
mar (conocida como Gran Conquista de Ultramar) de Sancho IV y la Estorie de Heracles
empereur et la conqueste de la terre dOutremer, Incipit, 25-26 (2005-2006), 189-212.
54
The rst and only illustrated Arthurian manuscript, of which only 49 fragments of
varied sizes survive, is a Tristn de Leons dating to the end of the fourteenth century. See
Jos Manuel Luca Megas, El Tristn de Leons castellano: Anlisis de las miniaturas del
cdice BNM, ms. 22644, eHumanista, 5 (2005), 1-47 (http://www.ehumanista.ucsb.edu/
volumes/volume_05/articles/LuciaMegias.pdf. Information retrieved from the site on
12th December 2007). On the other hand, the bibliography on Arthurian manuscripts is
vast. See Keith Busby, Codex and Context: Reading Old French Verse Narrative in Manuscript,
2 vols. (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002); Alison Stones, Keith Busby et alli, The Manuscripts of
Chrtien de Troyes, 2 vols. (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2003); Michael Curschmann, Images of
that, more or less, formed part of historiography.55 The choice of these

texts, however, seems obvious given the values associated with them: in
the case of the Gran Conquista de Ultramar, the diusion of a crusading
ideal, and in that of the Crnica Troyana, the appropriation of the prestig-
ious Trojan past. It could not have been any other way, when chivalric
ideology and, in turn, its imaginary, were being elaborated and dissemi-
nated from the court in function of the expansionist politics of the Castilian
monarchy.56
The Crnica Troyana was by far the most rened and subtle work of art
commissioned by Alfonso, and it oers to scholarship what is without a
doubt the most cogent statement of hisor his entouragesideal of a
Castilian courtliness (Figure 5). Mechanisms which were valid for linguis-
tic and literary translation could be applied to the realm of visual produc-
tion with equal success.57 The idea was not to adopt foreign elementsin
this case, chivalric ctionin a passive imitation of European traditions
Tristan, in Gottfried von Strassburg and the Medieval Tristan Legend. Papers from an Anglo-
North American Symposium, ed. A. Stevens y R. Wisbey (London: Boydell & Brewer, 1990),
1-17; Sandra Hindman, Sealed in Parchment: rereadings of knighthood in the illuminated
manuscripts of Chrtien de Troyes (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1994); James A.
Rushing Jr., Images of Adventure. Ywain in the Visual Arts (Philadelphia, PA: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1995).
55
From the Gran Conquista de Ultramar only the Historia del Caballero del Cisne is
considered to be chivalric. The ctional nature of these ancient romances was even more
ambiguous for their Iberian audience, and might be connected to the concept of the argu-
mentum; that is, a type of narratio conceived as cosas que no son fechas, ms empero
pudense fazer (things which were not done, but which might have been; Isidoro de
Sevilla). For these categories, see Pivi Mehtonen, Old Concepts and New Poetics. Histo-
ria , Argumentum and Fabula in Twelfth-Century and Early Thirteenth-Century Latin
Poetics of Fiction (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 1996), 91-114; for their applica-
tion to the conte de Ronme, see Csar Domnguez Prieto, El concepto de materia en la teora
literaria del medievo. Creacin, interpretacin y transtextualidad (Madrid: CSIC, 2004), 197.
Cf. the overview provided by D. H. Green, The Beginnings of Medieval Romance. Fact and
Fiction, 1150-1220 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
56
Rodrguez Velasco, Invencin y consecuencias de la caballera, xvi-xxiv.
57
Among the bibliography devoted to this issue, see Claude Buridant, Translatio medi-
evalis. Thorie et pratique de la traduction mdivale, Travaux de Linguistique et de Lit-
terature 21 (1983), 81-134; Rita Copeland, Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the
Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Joaqun Rubio Tovar, Algu-
nas caractersticas de las traducciones medievales, Revista de Literatura Medieval 9 (1997),
197-246.
but rather to make them ones own, to integrate them into the existing
system of functions and meanings of Iberian courtly culture in order to
assure their eectiveness in broadcasting a carefully crafted ideological pro-
gram. It is along these lines that we should interpret the metaphorical
dressing of ancient history from the classical tradition in the Islamic tex-
tiles traditionally used in Castilian displays of power.58
Any translation process implicitly carries with it the attempt to bridge
the gap between the text and its audience, especially when, as in the case of
medieval texts that reelaborate classical materials, they face barriers that are
not merely linguistic but also social, cultural and religious. For this reason,
classical texts present an antiquity that has been medievalized, Christian-
ized and moralized, strategies that translators used to imbue the past with
meaning and make it relevant to their contemporaries, in order to explore
and to articulate historical dimensions and cultural components of [their]
existence with which [they] had scarcely been concerned before,59 This
phenomenon has received much attention in the realm of literary criti-
cism, but illustration has traditionally been valued only in function of its
delity to the text it accompanies. At times, even, a putative absence of
historical consciousness has been oered as an explanation for these texts
58
Feliciano, Muslim Shrouds, 126-130. The use of Andalusi textiles as funerary shrouds
for Alfonso VIII, Leonor of Aquitaine and Berenguela in their tombs at Las Huelgas in
Burgos is pertinent here. As Feliciano emphasizes, this attitude had more to do with the
values associated with precious objects of Andalusi originsluxury, superb craftsmanship
rather than with any agenda of appropriation of the art of the vanquished. Although her
analysis deals specically with Andalusi textiles, it could also be applied to stuccos, ivory
caskets, swords, etc. Indeed, perhaps this attitude could be considered an example of a
modal use of styles, and as such would be in line with Alfonso XIs and Pedros patronage
of hybrid artistic artifacts. Cf. Ruggles comments on the area of the Alczar of Seville
refurbished during the reign of Alfonso XI, and her problematic assertion that Pedro
[thought] of himself as an Andalusi, Ruggles, Alczar of Seville, 90 and 97.
59
Gabrielle Spiegel, Romancing the Past: The rise of the vernacular prose historiography in
thirteenth-century France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 101. The bibliog-
raphy devoted to this topic is vaste. As examples, for the Hispanic realm and the Spanish
account of Alexander the Greats deeds in particular, see Ian Michael, The Treatment of Clas-
sical Material in the Libro de Alexandre (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1970);
Peter A. Bly y Alan D. Deyermond, The use of gura in the Libro de Alexandre, Journal
of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 2 (1972) 151-181; Amaia Arizaleta, La traslation
dAlexandre: recherches sur les structures et signications du Libro de Alexandre (Paris: Smi-
naire dtudes Mdivales Hispaniques de la Universit de Paris, 1999).
Figure 5. Crnica Troyana de Alfonso XI (fol. 115r). Greek camp. Patri-

monio Nacional
perceived failure at reconciling classical forms and content in a rigorous

and unied archeological system.60
60
Erwin Panofskys formulation of the so-called principle of disjunction, so many times
challenged, is developped in Renaissance and Renewals in Western Art (Stockholm: Almquist
& Wiksell, 1960), 162-210. For a more sympathetic approach to the illustrations of
romances of antiquity, cf. the pioneering study by Fritz Saxl, The Troy Romance in French
and Italian Art, in Lectures (London: The Warburg Institute: 1957), 1:125-138; 2:72-81;
and the precise summary oered by Brigitte Buettner, Profane Illuminations, Secular Illu-
sions: Manuscripts in Late Medieval Courtly Society, The Art Bulletin 74 (1992), 75-90.
In a dierent vein, the Crnica Troyanas visual account of the Trojan

War (Figure 6) has been categorized by scholarship either as too French (it
lacks the indigenous quality of the Cantigas de Santa Mara) or too exotic
(Greeks and Trojans sitting a la morisca, horseshoe-shaped arches in Trojan
gates, etc.).61 An attentive examination of its text and images, however,
reveals it to be the result of a conscious attempt to personalize and appro-
priate the exemplary deeds of Greeks and Trojans. A clear example of this
is found in the setting of concrete episodes in Portugal, a feature common
to other Peninsular versions of the matire de Troie,62 that may also have
also acted as encouragement for the Iberization of the visual narrative,
evident in the display of the hybrid artifacts and customs related to Iberian
courtliness since earlier times. For instance, Castilians could easily have
recognized the depiction of the juego de bohordos (Figure 7), a chivalric
game in which participants threw short spears at small wooden castles in
order to prove their strength and aim. Originally a Muslim game, it was
also popular among Christians, to the extent that it was one of the courtly
amusements at Alfonso XIs coronation in Burgos, discussed earlier.63 The
objective was to resettle ancient history on Iberian soil and thus to claim
for the Castilian monarchy a prestigious past, in a fashion both homolo-
gous with and distinct from French and Norman constructions of Trojan
genealogies.64 In this sense, the transfer of Troy from the far east to the
61
Camn Aznar is a representative of the former attitude and Hugo Buchthal of the
latter. See Jos Camn Aznar, Suma Artis, vol. 22: Pintura medieval espaola (Madrid:
Espasa-Calpe, 1977), 362; Buchthal, Historia Troiana, 15. Similarly, the Nasrids transla-
tion of a foreign tradition, that of chivalric ction, would of necessity constitute an artis-
tic gesture of alienation, as for Dodds, Hunting for identity, in Imgenes y promotores en el
arte medieval. Miscelnea en homenaje a Joaqun Yarza Luaces, eds. M. L. Melero, F. Espaol,
A. Orriols and D. Rico (Barcelona, Universidad Autnoma de Barcelona, 2001), 89-100,
esp. 100.
62
See Carlos Villamarn, Os autmatas da cmara de Eytor and Aquiles en Portugal
(cf., note 51).
63
Poema de Alfonso Onceno, stanza 400, 120. It was mentioned by Mackay, Frontier
religion and culture, 164-165.
64
On the uses of genealogy in the construction of historiographical discourse and polit-
ical legitimacy, see Howard R. Bloch, Etymologies and Genealogies. A Literary Anthropology
of the French Middle Ages (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1984); Lee Patterson,
Virgil and the Historical Conciousness of the Twelfth Century: The Roman dEneas and
Erec and Enide, in Negotiating the Past. The Historical Understanding of Medieval Literature
(Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), 157-195. For the construction
of a Trojan ancestry by Capetian and Angevin dinasties, see Colette Beaune, Lutilisation
Figure 6. Crnica Troyana de Alfonso XI (fol. 84r). Trojans going to battle.

Patrimonio Nacional
Iberian Peninsula which occurs in the royal manuscripts images eloquently

visualizes the sister notions of translatio imperii y translatio studii.65 The
politique du mythe des origines troyennes en France la n du Moyen ge, in Lectures

mdivales de Virgile (Rome: cole Franaise de Rome, 1985), 331-355.
65
In addition to the bibliography alluded in the precedent note, see Translatio studii :
les avatars dun thme mdival, in Miscellanea medievalia in memoriam Jan Frederik
Niermeyer (Groningen: Walters, 1967), 41-51; Serge Lusignan, La topique de la translatio
studii et les traductions franaises des textes savants au XIVe sicle, in Traduction et traduc-
teurs au Moyen ge (Paris : CNRS-IRHT, 1989), 303-315. The idea of translatio underpins
Alfonsine historiographical enterprises as several studies have pointed out. See, among oth-
ers, Francisco Rico, Alfonso el Sabio y la General Estoria (Barcelona: Ariel, 1972), 45-64;
Charles F. Fraker, The Scope of History. Studies in the Historiography of Alfonso el Sabio (Ann
Arbor, MI: Michigan University Press, 1996); Ins Fernndez Ordez, ed., Alfonso X
el Sabio y las Crnicas de Espaa (Valladolid: Fundacin Santander Central Hispano, 2000);
Leonardo Funes, La crnica como hecho ideolgico: el caso de la Estoria de Espaa de
Alfonso X, La Cornica, 32:3 (2004), 69-89, esp. 84-86; Paloma Gracia, Hacia el modelo
de la General estoria. Pars, la translatio imperii y studii y la Histoire ancienne jusqu Csar,
Zeitschrift fr Romanische Philologie, 122 (2006), 17-27. Cf. Helena de Carlos Villamarn,
Las Antigedades de Hispania (Spoleto: CISAM, 1996) for the pre-Alfonsine historiograpy.
Figure 7. Crnica Troyana de Alfonso XI (fol. 23v). Paris and Helen entry
into Troy. Patrimonio Nacional
appropriation of the classical cultural legacy and the ensuing symbolic

insertion of Castile into an uninterrupted line of power in which Troy,
Rome, France and Castile succeed one another goes so far as to incorporate
even the most compromising aspects of the past, such as pagan religion.
This visual program has no parallels in audacity or coherence in the mini-
atures of any other manuscript of the iconographic family linked to the
Roman de Troie.66 For these reasons, perhaps we should interpret the inclu-
66
For example, compare the illustrations of the temple of Diana in Cyprus, scene of the
kidnapping of Helen, in the Crnica Troyana (fol. 21r) and in a contemporary French
manuscript containing the Roman de Troie (Paris, BnF, MS fr. 60, fol. 42r). While the god-
dess in the Castilian codex is reminiscent of the Virgins of the Cantigas de Santa Mara, her
French counterpart has been represented as a demon-like idol.
Figure 8. Crnica Troyana de Alfonso XI (fol. 137v). T-O map. Patrimo-

nio Nacional
sion of a T/O map (Figure 8) in the Crnica Troyana not only as the picto-
rial consequence of the interpolation of fragments from Isidores Etymologies
(fols. 137r-138v), but also as a call to reect on the geopolitical implica-
tions of the Trojan myth.67
Translation at the Juncture between Identity and Otherness

Though the Crnica Troyana had no noticeable repercussions in terms of
direct imitation on the miniature painting of the decades immediately fol-
lowing its production, I feel that its powerful visual imagery in fact pro-
vides the basis for the artistic koin produced in the 1350s and 1360s
across the Castilian-Grenadine frontier. Pedro was a faithful follower of his
fathers style and, not surprisingly, he consistently appropriated both visual
and literary imagery associated with his father, such as the emblem of
the Banda and chivalric ction, in order to successfully confront the threat
posed by his illegitimate brothers ambitions. Basilio Pavn has rightly pointed
out the striking similarities between the chivalric stuccos of the Alczar
(Figure 3) and the royal manuscript under discussion here (Figure 6); indeed,
67
These mappaemundi are quite often depicted in historical compilations, encyclopedias
or in manuscripts devoted to the deeds and conquests of Alexander the Great but were not
included in any other copy of the French poem.
it almost seems that the manuscript served the creators of the stucco pro-
gram as a repository of motifs and compositional schemes.68 Though the
novelty of this artistic practice has hardly been noticed in extant scholar-
ship, it in fact serves to invalidate the compartmentalization of artifacts
according to medium which has traditionally characterized (and, indeed,
continues to characterize) much art historical practice. Though these stuc-
coes are often described as Islamicizing in character, and catalogued and
studied alongside the stuccoes of periods as distant as the Caliphate,
the gural elements which in fact dene Castilian stuccoes of the mid-
fourteenth century are entirely new to the medium and reect, not the
survival of an Islamic tradition, but the adaptation of the medium to the
new courtly criteria.69
Pavn Maldonado proposed that the same workshops were responsible
for the decoration both of the palace of Tordesillas and of several Toledan
palaces, such as the one owned by Ruy Lpez Dvalos, mentioned above
(Figure 4). Although their specic dates and the concrete relations between
these ensembles are under dispute, the nearly contemporaneous produc-
tion of these several programs suggests the existence of a well-established
taste for stuccoes in the courtly and aristocratic realm.70 The repetition of
68
These scenes are framed by quatri-lobed medallions. Pavn Maldonado, Arte toledano,
236-237 and 239-244. Cf., Cmez Ramos, Mitologa caballeresca en la educacin de un
prncipe castellano in El Alczar del rey don Pedro, 69-77.
69
Perhaps the introduction of human guresoften originally painted and thus similar
in appearance to miniatureswas a sort of Iberian alternative to tapestries, these latter
being a traditional attribute of luxurious palatial interiors. Stuccoes presented similar
opportunities for dialogue between narrative and ornament, between human guration
and vegetal abstraction. Indeed, these analogies might have acted as stimuli for the transfer
between one medium and another.
70
This same workshop was almost certainly responsible for the ornamental program of
the Synagogue of the Trnsito as well, erected as a private oratorio by Schlomo ha-Levi,
Jewish royal treasurer to Peter I of Castile who, in the Hebrew inscriptions of his building,
praised Pedro and himself in the most exalted of terms. Nevertheless, he lost royal favor in
1361-1362. Estow, Pedro I, 167-174, esp. 168-169. See also Isidro Bango Torviso, Jew-
ishs, Moors and Christians under Royal Authority, in Remembering Sepharad. Jewish Cul-
ture in Medieval Spain, ed. I. Bango Torviso (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Accin
Cultural Exterior de Espaa, 2003), 259-264. Cynthia Robinson analyzes the devotional
function of its vegetal decoration in comparation with Tordesillas in Mudejar Revisited. A
prolegomena to the reconstruction of perception, devotion, and experience at the mudjar
convent of Clarisas, Tordesillas, Spain (fourteenth century AD), RES. Anthropology and
Ethnicity, 43 (2003), 51-77; Trees of love, trees of knowledge: Toward the denition of a
themes and motifs in these works, howeverthe lady and the wild man,
hunting scenes, knightly jousts, gardens and courtly games (Figure 1 and
Illustration 14), as well as the use of this repertoire in a variety of supports-
miniature, mural painting and stucconeither implies a homogeneous
use of the images nor eaces important dierences in medium. For
instance, the complexities of plot suggested by any given ensemble vary
from the subtleties of the long visual account displayed in the seventy
miniatures of the Crnica to the merely allusive cycle of the Alczar and the
apparent absence of any narrative intent from the stuccoes that grace the
palace of Ruy Lpez Dvalos, which may have been intended for devo-
tional purposes as well.71 One can conclude that this repertoire, intrinsic to
courtly culture, was subjected to constant stylistic and narrative experi-
mentation in a rather brief chronological frame (1340s-1360s). It can even
be argued that its rapid geographical diusion is due to the close personal
circles that can be invoked to claim direct links between some of the spaces
here analyzed. By way of example, the inclusion in the castle of Alcaiz of
an iconographically isolated theme, that of the lady and the wild man,
occurs in the last pictorial campaign undertaken in the fortress, not by
mere coincidence linked to the patronage of Diego Garca de Padilla, Mas-
ter of Calatrava (1355-1365) and brother of Mara de Padilla.72
The Alhambra paintings cannot be analyzed outside this frame of generic
codication of chivalric imaginary (in both formal and ideological terms)
negotiated throughout the rst half of the fourteenth century. A compara-
tive survey of the Crnica Troyana and the Alhambra ceilings will reveal,
rst, both the singularities and the sophistication of the Castilian transla-
tion of European models of courtliness. These, in turn, preceded and
cross-confessional current in late medieval Iberian spirituality, Medieval Encounters, 12

(2006), 388-435. Common points between the synagogue and Ruy Lpez Dvalos are
explored in Ruz Souza and Rallo Gruss, El palacio de Ruy Lpez Dvalos, 288-289.
71
Pavn Maldonado described the Alczar stuccos as una serie de temas cristianos dis-
puestos en friso sin relacin argumental, segn costumbre musulmana, He considered
French ivories as posible source for the stuccos. Their motifs would have been passed from
there to the Alhambra and the Toledan palaces. Pavn Maldonado, Arte toledano, 239-243
(239). Cf. note 6. I will undertake the study of this cycle in my dissertation. This imagery
might also be the bearer of both secular and paradisiac connotations. See Robinson, Mud-
jar Revisited; Trees of Love.
72
I will develop this hypothesis in detail in Sum sine regno, This motif is very similar
to its counterpart found in the Alhambra, which would seem to imply common or similar
models.
informed a Grenadine translation of equal sophistication and complexity

which, in fact, constituted a response to Castilian models and represents a
sophisticated engagement of chivalric textual and iconographic traditions.
In constrast to previous studies, Cynthia Robinson has proposed a read-
ing of the iconographic program based in two Iberian textual, or para-
textual, sources: Tristan de Leons on the one hand, and Flores y Blancaor,
on the other, in such a way that the two narratives work simultaneously
(Illustrations 6 and 13).73 The complex visual narrative not only merges
these two literary sources but also adapts them to the Grenadine socio-
cultural context, reversing the religious identity of their protagonists. The
result is a version of the stories tailored to an Andalusian courtly audience
capable of distinguishing two dierent layers of meaning: one strictly nar-
rative and the other allegorical.
Indeed, both the image program of the Crnica Troyana and the paint-
ings in the Hall of Justice are visual translations of texts that already bear
an Iberian imprint as the result of a long process of re-elaboration, result-
ing in a nal product that had as much to do with Iberian courtly culture
as with the French originals. Only an extensive knowledge of French
romances acquired through previous translations, whether oral or written,
of these materials and an awareness of their multivalent meanings and
values would have allowed for such a manipulation in order to adapt them
to the tastes Castilian and Grenadine audiences. As I have already pointed
out, the visual narrative in the Hall of Justice ceilings inverts the religious
and ethnic identities of the protagonists of these chivalric texts and in so
doing, not only articulates an explicit commentary on hybridity itself, but
also opens the door onto the possibility of an Andalusi contribution to the
literary tradition of Iberian courtliness.74 The Crnica Troyana, on the other
73
Cynthia Robinson advances some of her hypothesis in Medieval Andalusian Courtly
Culture, 187-189. On the other hand, through the use of para-textual, I place emphasis
not only on written versions but also on the oral ones that could have circulated even more
widely across the Castilian-Grenadine frontier. On the importance of oral versions in the
production of chivalric imagery in Iberia, see Serafn Moralejo lvarez, Artes gurativas y
artes literarias en la Espaa medieval: Romnico, Romance, Roman, Boletn de la Asoci-
acin Europea de Profesores de Espaol 17: 32-33 (1985), 61-70; Roco Snchez Ameijeiras,
Cistercienses y leyendas artricas: el Caballero del Len en Penamaior (Lugo), in El tm-
pano romnico. Imgenes, estructuras y audiencias, ed. Roco Snchez Ameijeiras y Jos Luis
Senra Gabriel y Galn (Santiago de Compostela: Xunta de Galicia, 2003), 295-321.
74
Concerning the destabilizing potential of the discourse on hybridity contained in
the dierent versions of Flores y Blancaor and their Peninsular origins, see Marla Segol,
hand, distances itself from previous readings of the Trojan cycle, such as
those oered by the Libro de Alexandre (ca. 1220s-1230s) or the Historia
Troyana Polimtrica (ca. 1270-1300) which, from a clerical point of view,
focus their criticism on the pride of sovereigns bent on heroic feats beyond
reason, and on the destructive ethos of courtly love, respectively.75 On
the contrary, the miniature cycle of the royal manuscript suggests an inter-
pretation of the Trojan war that, even though it condemns Greeks and
Trojans for not being able to negotiate an honorable peace, exalts war as a
means to eternal fame, elevating chivalry to a regulating code of courtly life
and making the court a place of pleasure and renement.76 This choice can
be better understood in connection to Alfonso XIs chivalric ideology: he
wished to place Castile at the center of European politics, on a par with
France and England, and the creation of a new mythic cartography in
which the Iberian Peninsula would gure as a privileged scenario might
have attered the kings political ambitions.77 Ancient history also might
have served Alfonsos purposes, oering a lay imagery suitable for the
Order of the Scarf that, unlike Arthurian romance, eectively escaped the
Churchs control.
In a more subtle way, the leitmotif of the Trojan siege could also reso-
nate with Castilian courtiers because it oered a lter through which they
might conceptualize their own experiences on the battleeld. It is note-
worthy that Alfonsos most renowned victories were the result of long
sieges; his triumph at Algeciras in 1344 is a case in point. Indeed, I believe
that the Crnica Troyana was commissioned with the idea of a recent
Medieval Cosmopolitism and the Saracenan-Christian Ethos, CLCWeb. Comparative Lit-

erature and Culture: A WWWeb Journal 6.2 (2004) http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/
clcweb04-2/segol04.html (Information retrieved from the site on 4 May 2006).
75
About the Alexandre, see the works cited in note 59. For the Historia Troyana
Polimtrica, see Marina Brownlee, Narrative structure and the rhetoric of negation in the
Historia Troyana, Romania, 106 (1985), 439-455; Louise Haywood, Al mal pecado de
los troyanos: Lrica y modos narrativos en la Historia Troyana Polimtrica, in Actas del XII
Congreso de la Asociacin Internacional de Hispanistas, ed. A. Ward, 7 vols. (Birmingham,
AL: Department of Hispanic Studies-University of Birmingham, 1998), 1: 216-221.
76
See Rodrguez Porto, The Crnica Troyana.
77
This shift to chivalric imagery could be seen as an amalgamation of European tradi-
tions and occurred in parallel with an active participation of Castile in the Anglo-French
war. See Luis Vicente Daz Martn, Castilla, 1280-1360: Poltica exterior o relaciones
accidentales, in Gnesis medieval del estado moderno, 125-147; Rodrguez Porto, The
Crnica Troyana.
triumph in Gibraltar as backdrop. The Poema de Alfonso Onceno, a sort of

ballad devoted to the praise of the king, seems to have been written some-
time around 1348 with a similar purpose.
In fact, both the miniatures of the Crnica Troyana and the Alhambra
paintings actively encourage their viewers to identify with the scenes
depicted in order to elicit understanding of and agreement with their under-
lying ideological content. Two images in particular exemplify the manner in
which these ensembles functioned as mirrors for their audiences, serving
both descriptive and prescriptive functions in their staging of a particular
idea of courtliness and chivarly. The Crnica Troyana (Figure 9) opens with
a depiction of the author, Benot de Saint-Maure, addressing his public in
his role of keeper and transmitter of knowledge. The iconographic scheme
for this image derives from books destined for use in universities and sanc-
tions the matire de Troie as an exemplum, appropriate object of academic
reection and learning. Moreover, it oers a veritable portrait of the public
readings and debates that constituted the context of use of the book and,
in this manner, serves as an auto-referential allusion to the function place
of the manuscript in the courtly realm as cultural artifact. In a passage
from the Partidas (2, 21, 20) in which the Learned King discusses the
appropriate reading material for caualleros, it is explicitly stated that books
should be read aloud during mealtimes. The purpose of this chivalric ritual
was to stimulate community among the members of this social class and to
negotiate a code of behaviour, as well as to underline their subordinate
position in relation to the king.78
A similar context of use could be proposed for the scene depicted in the
central vault of the Hall of Justice (Illustration 1), where ten Muslim
courtiersassuming that their identity conforms to their dressappear
engaged in conversation, almost certainly concerning the scenes displayed
in the lateral ceilings (Illustration 3). These images, in other words, were
chosen because they provided exempla suitable for commentary. Cynthia
Robinson interprets this image as a gathering of several members of the
Order de la Banda, both Grenadine and Castilian, a suggestive theory that
78
Rodrguez Velasco, Invencin y consecuencias de la caballera, xxiii-xxiv; idem,
Espacio de certidumbre: palabra legal, narracin y literatura en Las siete partidas (y otros
misterios del taller alfons), Cahiers dtudes hispaniques medievales 29 (2006), 423-452.
See also Carlos Heusch, ed., La caballera castellana en la Baja Edad Media. Textos y contex-
tos (Montpellier: Universit de Montpellier III, 2000), 65.
Figure 9. Cronica Troyana de Alfonso XI (fol. 1r). Benot de Sainte-Maure.

Patrimonio Nacional
would account for not only of the depiction of the Banda emblems but
also for the Gothicness of this chivalric display.79 This scene could also be
identied a majlis, a small and often nocturnal gathering for the purpose
of pleasurable interchange on a variety of subjects, literary exchange and/
or improvisation, [and] the consumption of wine in pleasing company.80
Majlis had been the most rened manifestation of Andalusi courtliness
since the later Caliphate, and texts inform us that Christians were some-
times allowed to participate.81 The customary character of this practice
is attested by the Andalusi manuscript containing the story of Bayd
wa Riyd, mentioned earlier, where the go-between comments to the
79
See below. Pavn Maldonado also proposed the idea of seeing in the vault una cro-
niquilla ilustrada de la Crnica de don Pedro del Canciller de Ayala, and identied the scene
as the ceremony of inclusion of Muhammad and his courtiers in the Order de la Banda,
although nothing in the image suggests such a specic interpretation; Pavn Maldonado,
Arte toledano, 265. On the other hand, Ibn al-Khatb recounts the use of distintive heraldic
emblems by Grenadine courtiers in the earlier times of the Nasrid dynasty, as quoted
in Garca Gmez, Cinco poetas musulmanes. Biografas y estudios (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe,
1969), 176.
80
Robinson, In Praise of Song, xxi.
81
Pl. majlis. Robinson, In Praise of Song, 362-368. Documents quoted by Robinson
refer to the tenth and eleventh centuries but in Ibn al-Khatbs description of the mawlid
(celebration of the Prophets birth) in 1362 Christians are also listed among the participants.
male lover, Bayd, that it is well-known that kings love gay parties in
gardens!82
The value conferred on the images in both the Crnica Troyana and the
Hall of Justiceindeed, it would appear that they functioned as a sort of
iconic handbook on courtly living which courtiers were expected to emu-
late and comment uponshould not be underestimated. They stand as
testimony to the degree of universally intelligible codication reached by
the Iberian courtly culture on both sides of frontier. Majlis were intended
for the delight of cultivated courtiers but they were also intimately related
to royal panegyric rituals, a circumstance which might further nuance a
general interpretation of this area of the Palace of the Lions. Jos Miguel
Puerta Vlchez has discussed the historically conscious character of the
poetic imagery developed by Nasrid court poets and its close connection
with the Caliphate and Taifa periods, noting particularly the encomium
dedicated to Muhammad V in the epigraphic decoration concentrated
along the main axis of the patio, which runs from the Hall of the two Sis-
ters through the Hall of the Abencerrajes and is perpendicular to the so-
called Hall of Justice.83 It seems possible that the Hall of Justice might have
served as a privileged space designed to house the royal majlis, thus serving
as a link between the two principal architectural spaces of the patios main
axis. At the center of this constellation, of course, stood the gure of
Muhammad V, an embodiment of royal power and courtliness. Its reduced
dimensions would only allow for the presence of a selected group, the most
intimate companions of the sovereign. Indeed, Ruz Souzas proposal that
the small chambers covered by the ceilings may have housed part of the
palace library and served as a private place for study suggests an even more
82
Quoted in Cynthia Robinson, Going Between: The Hadith Bayd wa Riyd and the
Contested Identity of the Ajouz in the thirteenth-Century Iberia, in Under the Inuence,
199-230, esp. 227. The author oers a slightly dierent translation in her article The
Lover, His Lady, Her Lady, 89: . . . for kings love to take their pleasures in gardens . . .
83
See Jos Miguel Puerta Vlchez, Los cdigos de la utopa en la Alhambra de Granada
(Granada: Diputacin Provincial, 1990); El vocabulario esttico de los poemas de la
Alambra, in Pensar la Alhambra, J. A. Gonzlez Alcantud and A. Malpica Cuello, eds.
(Granada-Barcelona: Anthropos-Diputacin Provincial de Granada, 2001), 69-88; Estti-
cas de la luz, el tiempo y la apariencia en la arquitectura ulica andalus (unpublished).
I am grateful to Prof. Puerta Vlchez for allowing me to read the latter study. For taifa
courtly rituals and their involved meaning as panegyric ceremonials for the royal patron,
see Robinson, In Praise of Song, 92-116.
suitable environment for these illustrations without texts, one in which

the chivalric tales they depict would attain their deserved status as forma-
tive elements of the courtly ethos, providing an ideal backdrop for Nasrid
soires.84 Indeed, these images could be understood as monumentalized
illuminations, a perfect synthesis of the Castilian miniature tradition and
that of painting on leather more native to the Grenadine repertoire, with
the end result being a program of images conceived in relationship to the
texts housed in the shelves over which they presided.85
If, as appears to be the case, the selection of the scenes to be represented
was a coherent and deliberate one, one which drew on the re-elaboration
of the pan-European chivalric repertoire undertaken in Castile during the
previous several decades, is it not also possible that the miniature-like,
Gothic look of the paintings might have been equally deliberate? In the
controversy concerning the ceilings authorship and ethnic identication,
a signicant fact has been overlooked: there are other paintings in the
Alhambra. Though the pictorial cycle (now almost completely disappeared)
from the Tower of the Ladies, located in the Palace of the Partal, has sel-
dom been mentioned by scholars addressing the Hall of Justice, it is in fact
a comparison between the two cycles of images that most emphatically
assures us of the deliberate nature of the ceilings Gothicness.86 The
84
Ruiz Souza has proposed that the Courtyard of the Lions was originally conceived as
a madrasa, following North-African models. Although this suggestion as a whole has raised
considerable controversy, his suggestion concerning the library seems to have been accepted
without dispute. See Ruz Souza, El Palace of the Lions de la Alhambra. Madrasa, zwiya
y tumba de Muhammad V?, Al-Qantara XXII (2001) 77-120, esp. 94-98. The Nasrid
royal library was destroyed by Cardenal Cisneros ca. 1500. In one of the most unfortunate
episodes following the conquest of Granada, more than 4000 volumes of diverse genres
were burned in the name of cultural assimilation, See David Eisenberg, Cisneros y la
quema de los manuscritos granadinos, Journal of Hispanic Philology, 16 (1992), 107-124.
85
Concerning the technique employed in the construction of the wooden shells and
their leather coverings, see Jess Bermdez Pareja and Manuel Maldonado Rodrguez,
Informe sobre tcnicas, restauraciones y daos sufridos por los techos pintados de la Sala
de los Reyes en el Palacio de los Leones de la Alhambra, Cuadernos de la Alhambra 6
(1970), 5-20; Bermdez Pareja, Pinturas sobre piel en la Alhambra de Granada (Granada:
Patronato de la Alhambra y el Generalife, 1987).
86
Joaqun Torres Balbs, Ars Hispaniae, vol. 4: Arte Almohade. Arte Nazar. Arte Mudjar
(Madrid: Plus Ultra, 1949), 191-195; Gamal Mehrez, al-Rusum al-yidariyya l-islamiyya
l-Partal bi-l-Hamra. Las pinturas murales islmicas en el Partal de la Alhambra, (Madrid:
Mestre, 1951).
Partal paintings were discovered in 1907, hidden behind layers of plaster

whitewash; they depict a long caravan of warriors, complete with battle
gear and all the necessary accoutrements, disposed in three horizontal
registers. Figures are of reduced dimensionsall measure approximately
20 cm in heightand their dark outlines were originally partially lled
with gold. It is generally agreed that they were carried out during the rein
of Yusuf I (1333-1354), a period marked by notable Castilian cultural
inuence at the Nasrid court. Notwithstanding the Partal cycle evidences
strong ties to Eastern Islamicnamely Seljuqtraditions of image-making,
rather than to Western ones.87
The conclusion to be drawn from the comparison of the Partal and Hall
of Justice image cycles is that both Castilians and Grenadines were per-
fectly capable of cultivating their own (separate and easily distinguishable)
artistic traditions and genres while simultaneously interacting and collabo-
rating with their neighbours in the creation of a shared idea of courtliness
expressed through the manipulation of a common chivalric repertoire
of images. Thus, the election between so-called Western and Islamic
formal languages and imaginary might have been a very conscious one,
dependent on the concrete interests and personal tastes of patrons in a
given set of circumstances, rather than on the arbitrary and generalized
presence of inuence. In this artistic context dened by the negotiation
of forms and meanings inside the courtly culture, then, the often-repeated
theory of the exchange of artisans is completely superuous.
The particularities of the Iberian courtliness I have been discussing were
almost certainly perceived by the foreign visitors during the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries: hybridity, indeed, had become a sign of identity on
both sides of the frontier. In fact, the reactions of French diplomats who
visited Fernando IIIs court, on the one hand, and that of Ibn Khaldn
during his stay at the Nasrid court in Granada, on the other, do not dier
very much. The former were shocked by the sumptuous Islamic garments
and habits adopted by their Christian hostswho had been, in their eyes,
perhaps a bit too much seduced by the neries of the indels, while
the latter expressed his surprise at the Castilianized customs of Iberian
87
The terms employed by Torres Balbs or Camn Aznar are simply oriental or
mora. For Ari, they are depicted la manire de miniatures, Rachel Ari, Quelques
remarques sur le costume des musulmans dEspagne au temps des Nasrides, Arabica XII
(1965), 244-261, esp. 250.
Muslims, not least among which was a liking for mural paintings.88 The
remarks of the observant Moroccan historian betray a touch of annoyance,
produced by what he considered to be symptoms of submission and deca-
dence. Although his remarks should be considered in the context in which
they were made (that of an apology concerning the appropriateness of
asabiya, or the social solidarity that existed among all nomadic peoples, as
an ethical model for human society), both Christian and Islamic visitors
seem to have considered hybridity a threat to their respective identities.89
Such a blurring of the lines between Oriental and Western, Christian and
Islamic, Castilian and Grenadine, indeed, appears to produce an anxiety
akin to that which similar blurrings produce today, despite the fact that
hybridity has come to indicate an idealized state of postcolonial diversity
in the academic realm.90 Indeed, we should be careful not to use hybridity
as a stabilizing label for indulging ourselves in the task of exploring the
tensions existing behind intercultural rapports.91
Though not absolutely separate, Castille and Granada nonetheless
belonged to distinct visual and literary cultural realms, and this fact also
has important consequences for the structure and meaning of the artifacts
88
Oence and surprise also characterize the reactions of other foreign witnesses to Cas-
tilian courtly customs, such as Phillippe de Commynes, Leon Rozmithal, Hieronymous
Mnzer or Georges of Ehingen. See Phillippe de Commynes, Memoires, J. Calmette, ed.,
2 vols. (Paris: Honor Champion, 1924), 1:130; Antonio Mara Fabi, ed., Viajes por
Espaa, de Jorge de Ehingen, del Barn Len de Rozmithal de Blatna, de Francisco Gicciardini
y de Andrs Navagero (Madrid: Aribau, 1879); Jernimo Mnzer, Viaje por Espaa y Portu-
gal 1494-1495 (Madrid: Polifemo, 1991). Their testimonies are discussed by Prez Higuera,
El mudjar, 132-140. See also Ana Echevarra Arsuaga, La guardia morisca. Un cuerpo
desconocido del ejrcito espaol, Revista de historia militar 90 (2001), 55-78; Cammy
Brothers, The Renaissance Reception of the Alhambra: The Letters of Andrea Navagero
and the Palace of Charles V, Muqarnas 11 (1994), 79-102; Mara Elena Dez Jorge, El
palacio islmico de la Alhambra. Propuestas para una lectura multicultural (Granada: Univer-
sidad de Granada, 1998). On the other hand, see Ibn Khaldn, The Muqqaddimah, trans.
Franz Rosenthal, 3 vols. (New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1958), 1:300. Ibn al-Khatb also
mentions, in his Kitb al-wusl li-hifz al sihna l-fasl, the existence of femenine statues
with swollen busts and made-up cheeks in private rooms. See Puerta Vlchez, Historia del
pensamiento esttico rabe, 407.
89
For the concept of asabiya, see Puerta Vlchez, Historia del pensamiento, 417.
90
Mieke Bal, Travelling Concepts in the Humainities. A Rough Guide (Toronto: Univer-
sity of Toronto Press, 2002), p. 24. Cf., Segol, Medieval Cosmopolitism,
91
Robinson and Rouhi, Editors Introduction, 5.
involved in the courtly culture. A case in point is presented by the intrica-

cies and ambiguity of the narratives deployed in the Alhambra ceilings,
further heightened by the absence of any tituli or captions that would
allow for xed identications. Far from the allegorical or meta-linguistic
readings of chivalric tales implicated in the Nasrid ceilings, the Crnica
Troyana leads its viewers on an investigation into the simple perception of
matter, one whose main purpose is to assure the comprehension of an
event or sequence of events in terms of the specic locus, time, partici-
pants, actions, and human experience.92 This quotation from Madeline
Caviness classic article highlights the Trojan illuminations belonging to
the realm of realism rather than to that of metaphor andindependent
of the dierences between the two image programs occasioned by their
respective media, site-specic functions and audiencesinvites us to
reconsider the degree of literacy attained in both courts and to reconsider
with great care certain observations I myself have made in the preceding
pages concerning book trading and consumption in these two kingdoms.
If we take into account the widespread tradition of illuminated romances
in the French and Italian realms,93 1350 is in fact a notably late date for
their appearance onto the Castilian stage. Several explanations have been
oered for this delay. In his comparative survey of French and Hispanic
courtly patronage, George Greenia pointed out the almost complete
absence of both a book market and a demand for illuminated manuscripts
92
Madeline H. Caviness, The Simple Perception of Matter and the Representation
of Narrative, Gesta, 30 (1991), 48-64, esp. 49.
93
For the Roman de Troie and its textual and iconographic tradition, see. See Buchthal,
Historia Troiana, Marc-Ren Jung, La legende de Troie en France au Moyen ge: Analyse des
versions franaises et bibliographie raisone des manuscrits (Basel-Tbingen: Francke, 1996);
Doris Oltrogge, Die Illustrationszyklen zur Histoire ancienne jusqu Csar , 1250-1400
(Frankfurt, Peter Lang, 1987); Elizabeth Morrison, Illuminations of the Roman de Troie and
French Royal Dynastic Ambition (1260-1340), unpublished Ph D. Dissertation (I am grate-
ful to the author for providing me with a copy). The rst illuminated manuscript of the
Roman de Troie is dated to 1264 and the spread of illustrated copies into the Italian realm
Naples, Padova and Genoaappears to have occurred ca. 1320-1330. See Franois Avril,
Trois manuscrits napolitains des collections de Charles V et de Jean de Berry, Bibliothque
de lEcole des Chartes 127 (1969), 291-279; Alessandra Perricciolli Sagesse, I romanzi cav-
allereschi miniati a Napoli (Naples: Banca Sannitica, 1979). I will devote a substantial part
of my dissertation to the elucidation of the role played by the Crnica Troyana in this tradi-
tion.
on the part of the nobility in Castile.94 These circumstances were further

complicated by the strong survival of an aristocratic oral culture linked
to frontier society that left scant room for the consolidation of a lay read-
ing public.95 These factors, indeed, sharply distinguished Castile from the
more bookish Crown of Aragn.96
On the other hand, the only surviving evidence of an Andalusi tradition
of book illumination, Bayd wa Riyd (Vaticano, Ar. Ris. 368), seems to
indicate that this tradition was a lively and well-developed one.97 This thir-
teenth-century codex is neither a royal nor an aristocratic product, and
its considerable iconographic cycle14 large miniatures distributed over
30 foliossuggests a culture of reading practices parallel in development
to that of other European kingdoms, or perhaps even greater, given the fact
that it was addressed to a broader audience.98 If, as Cynthia Robinson has
proposed, the text and images of Bayd wa Riyd were suitable for an
urban audience of commerce-oriented merchants desirous not only of
learning the courtly code but also of amusing themselves with the subver-
sion of this same code, we might reasonably expect to nd much more
developed pieces and cultural artifacts in the Sultans library.99
94
See Georges D., University Book Production and Courtly Patronage in Thirteenth-
Century France and Spain in Medieval Iberia: Essays in the History and the Literature of
Medieval Spain, ed. D. J. Kagay and J. T. Snow (New York, NY: Peter Lang, 1997),
103-128.
95
See Jeremy H. N. Lawrence, The Spread of Lay Literacy in Late Medieval Castile,
Bulletin of Hispanic Studies LXII/1 (1985), 79-94. See also, Mackay, Frontier religion and
culture.
96
The case of the small kindgom of Majorca is indicative at this respect. See Jocelyn
Nigel Hillgarth, Readers and Books in Majorca 1229-1550, 2 vols. (Paris: CNRS-IRHT,
1991).
97
See notes 15 and 82.
98
Nevertheless, both text and image program are incomplete. The intensive use of paper
in the Andalusian realmtestimonied by the Vatican manuscriptfavored this process in
reducing the costs of production. See Anthony Pym, Translation history and the manufac-
ture of paper, in The Medieval Translator / Traduire au Moyen Age 6, eds. R. Ellis, R. Tixier,
B. Weitemeier (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), 57-71.
99
Robinson, The Lover, His Lady, Her Lady, 92-102; Going Between, 204-219;
Medieval Andalusian Courtly Culture, 117. Although in her rst approaches to Bayd wa
Riyd she proposed reconquered Seville as possible production sites for the making and
reception of this manuscript, she has recently suggested an earlier date (ca. 1175-1230) and
a dierent setting: one of the courts of the Almohads opponents or succesors, perhaps an
ally of Alfonso VIII of Castile. Robinson, Medieval Andalusian Courtly Culture, 113-115.
There is another detail from Robinsons studies of Bayd wa Riyd

that should be taken into account concerning the Alhambra ceilings. The
authors reading of Bayd wa Riyd as an explicit defense of the ajouz or
go-between, who has here become an advocate of the chaste and pure love
of the Banu Udhr, in a response to traditional Islamic, Christian and
Jewish representations of the gure of the alcahueta is an extremely com-
pelling one.100 Along the same lines, it would be possible to argue that
the paintings in the Hall of Justice replicate this precedent vis--vis their
immediate Castilian predecessors by means of the selection of the themes
to be depicted, the employment of distinctive rhetorical devices and the
subversion of certain elements of the common code of chivalric imagery
chivalric imaginary.101
To begin with, although the two cycles represent two equally clear
attempts to dene an idea of courtliness, each one focuses its discourse on
dierent topics. The Crnica Troyana devotes most of its 70 miniatures
exclusively to a (visual) discussion of just and honorable war under the
laws of chivalry. To this end, war is not (as it is in the Hall of Justice
ceilings) depicted as a mannered dance, but rather as a bloody aair,
one in which Castilian knights saw reected their own day-to-day reality
(Figure 5). The ideological burden of battle scenes is equally remarkable in
the paintings from Alcaiz (Figure 10) and is still perceptible in the Alc-
zar of Seville (Figure 3). In comparison with these examples, indeed, the
Hall of Justice paintings fall squarely into the camp of n amour, the art of
love evoked explicitly by both the Tristn and the Flores narratives (Illustra-
tion 7), and implicitly by the allegorical images of hunting and other themes
by which the principal narrative scenes are surrounded (Illustration 11). It is
striking, indeed, to consider the ways in which this almost troubadour-
esque iconographic program, evocative of love in all of its noblest mani-
festations, also lends itself, through the presence of the Lady as mediating
gure, to the articulation of moralized allusions to piety and devotion
which would even appear to have mystical undertones (Illustration 15).
100
On the other hand, certain images displayed in the Alfonsine Libro del Ajedrez, Dados
y Tablas (Escorial, T.I.6) might hide purposes of social control behind its moralistic cover
by means of functioning as a visual counterargument to this Andalusi tradition. Robinson,
Going Between, 223; Medieval Andalusian Courtly Culture, 152-160.
101
For a suggestive denition of the concept of replica, which I employ here instead of
copy, see Jennifer Trimble and Ja Elsner, If you need an actual statue . . ., Art History 29
(2006), 201-212.
Figure 10. Paintings of the Castle of Alcaiz (Aragn, ca. 1330-1360s).

Detail of the depiction of the battle between Muslim and Aragonese
troops. A caricaturised Muslim is looking at the entry of the Calatravan
church mockingly. Photo: author.
Upon closer scrutiny, however, it becomes apparent that the Hall of

Justice cycle sends conicting messages concerning love and passion: they
range from the exaltation of carnal desire (Illustration 14) at the strictly
narrative level (Tristn and Flores) to exhortations to the tempering of lust-
ful urges (the Maiden and the Wild Man, as well as admonitory animals
drawn from the moralizing tradition of the Christian bestiary which serve
to lead the viewers thoughts to highereven allegoricallevels (Illustra-
tion 15).102 What would seem, upon rst consideration, to be suggested as
acceptable courtly behavior is, upon closer examination, criticized and
even forbidden. As Robinson has argued concerning Bayd wa Riyd, it is
quite common for medieval romance narratives to exhibit multiple inter-
textualities through the presence of discrete topoi or narrative phonemes
which have been culled and re-cast from other narratives, as opposed to
102
See Cynthia Robinsons and Jennifer Borlands essays in this issue.
one narrative evidencing wholesale plot, character and setting borrowings

from another.103 In the case of the ceilings, this practice even serves to
subvert the permissive messages ostensibly communicated by the two prin-
cipal narratives.
Since the late Caliphal period, a taste for the ambiguous and the non-
narrative, and for verses bearing multiple layers of meaning, had been a
distinctive feature of the culture of the zuraf, the rened participants of
the Andalus majlis.104 Indeed, a delight in paradoxes and in deceptive
appearances may have been one of the motives for the creation of a virtual
garden made of stucco and paintas Puerta Vlchez has demonstrated,
the original name of the Patio was the Garden of Delightsinstead of a
natural one, as well as for the inclusion of several details which almost
certainly would have held a political message for members of the Nasrid
court.105 In addition to the representation of Christian knights of the
Order of the Scarf dressed as Muslims (not so surprising in this particular
context), it is striking to notice the depiction of turbans in the central
image (Illustration 2). Although their use was customary in other periods
and in other places, turbans had been absent for almost a century from the
Nasrid court, due to the preference for Castilian garments and head-
dresses.106 However, the beginning of Muhammad Vs second reign was
also the starting point for several radical changes in Grenadine society.
Among other measures, in 1362 the Sultan made the wearing of turbans
obligatory for his courtiers, thus establishing more than a standard of fash-
ion. This was a political gesture: by adopting the garments of their Arab
brothers, the Nasrid court would distance itself from the Castilianizing
103
Robinson, Going Between, p. 217n.
104
Zrif was the term applied to an elegant or dandied person in general, but it also
refers specically to the majlis participants, as well as to the particular sort of literature and
panegyric they favored; Robinson, In Praise of Song, pp. xxiii and 87.
105
The original name of the Palace of the Lions was al-Riyd al-Sad but it never con-
tained an actual garden. Even the court around the fountain was covered with white mar-
ble. See Puerta Vlchez, Estticas de la luz; Enrique Nuere Matauco, Sobre el pavimento
del Patio de los Leones, Cuadernos de la Alhambra 22 (1986), 87-94.
106
. . . le turban est loin davoir jou dans la vie sociale des Nasrides un rle comparable
celui quil eut chez leurs contemporaines, les Mamlks dgypte et de Syrie : Ari,
Quelques remarques, p. 253. The representation of turbans in Alfonsine manuscripts
cannot be used as comparanda, since these images describe the fashion of almost a century
before.
tastes which, to date, had marked it.107 Thus, in these paintings whose
Western style, as argued above, was almost certainly deliberately chosen,
turbans made a strong statement concerning the particularities of Nasrid
identity, but one which is nonetheless made from a position at the center
of the Iberian courtly culture. Though this measure does not appear to
have had any real eect in the foreign aairs of the Grenadine kingdom, its
signicance should not be discounted; indeed, it doubtless formed part of
the propagandistic (and, certainly in the eyes of modern scholars, para-
doxical) discourse of jihd which was such a key component in the con-
struction of the Nasrid royal image and courtly displays.108
This brings us to the nal issue I wish to address: the dicult and recur-
rent question of the identication of the frontier as space of confrontation,
whether actual or ideological. Dodds and Mackay have made of this point
one of the cornerstones of their insights on the Nasrid ceilings.109 Though
I consider this point as a secondary one in the multifaceted agenda that lies
behind these images, it is impossible to ignore the very controversial gure
of the Muslim killing the Christian knight and its evocations of violence,
however choreographic (Illustration 17). Violent images of this sort sel-
dom appear completely dissociated from ideological connotations and, if
we compare this iconographic formula to its much more widespread Chris-
tian counterpart, it is dicult to deny its aggressive nature (Figure 10).110
These two mirroring images are witnesses to the existence of an insur-
mountable boundary, that of faith, which remains in the imaginary as a
107
La gura real deslumbr sus ojos, y lo que ms les gust fue, primero, que en vez de
corona se tocara con un turbante, al que ahora convirtipues antes era desconocido
como talen emblema de la realeza en al-Andalus, These are Ibn al-Khatbs comments on
the mawlid ceremony of 1362. See Garca Gmez, Foco de antigua luz sobre la Alhambra.
Desde un texto de Ibn al-Jatb en 1362 (Madrid: Instituto Egipcio de Estudios Islmicos:
1988), p. 150.
108
See al-Azmeh, Mortal Enemies, 261-262, for what concerns Ibn al-Khatbs vision
of Northerners.
109
Dodds, The Paintings in the Hall of Justice, 195-197; eadem, Hunting for Iden-
tity, 97-100; Mackay, Frontier religion and culture, 161-163.
110
See Antonio Garca Flores, Fazer batallas a los moros por las vecindades del reyno :
imgenes de enfrentamientos entre cristianos y musulmanes en la Castilla medieval, in
Identidad y representacin de la frontera en la Espaa medieval (siglos XI-XIV): seminario cel-
ebrado en la Casa de Velzquez y la Universidad Autnoma de Madrid. 14-15 de diciembre de
1998, ed. by C. de Ayala Martnez, P. Buresi and Ph. Josserand (Madrid: Casa de Velzquez-
Universidad Autnoma de Madrid, 2001), 267-292.
ceremonial opposition between old enemies, in Dodds well-chosen words.

Even in the best of times, the frontier constituted a denite separation of
one space and kingdom from another. Permanent truce was not a truly
viable option, nor was peaceful coexistence.111
Stereotypes (such as the Muslim killing the Christian on the Hall
of Justice ceilings) coined on both sides of CastilianGrenadine frontier
are consistently present among the shared topoi that comprise the visual
realm of the Iberian courtly interculture. Indeed, despite the intercultu-
ral practices that created this very courtly koin (not to mention the inti-
mate mutual knowledge this entailed), Castilian and Grenadine
were also ideas constructed in medieval Iberia through the use of a
stock of sentiments and images that shaped ideas of identity and alter-
ity.112 Negotiation, however, as well as every conceivable shade of gray, was
always possible.
One might take as an example of this phenomenon the corpus of images
under examination in the present essay. Certain sections of the painting
program of the castle of Alcaiz (Figure 10) may serve as the starting point
of a dialogueconducted in imagesof oppositional perceptions of
Christians and Muslims. This complex ensemble of paintings is located in
the tower of the Calatravan fortress, principally on the rst oor where the
main cycle devoted to the conquest of Valencia is found. Surprisingly,
given the dominant themes of the iconographic program, the only explicit
depiction of struggle between the Christian and Islamic forces appears to
have been intentionally displaced to the space functioning as atrium for
the adjoining church. In this way, the actual seizure of the city is presented
as the result of a CalatravanAragonese coalition against Castilian inter-
ests, whereas this particular episodewhich, according to stylistic criteria,
111
Garca Fernndez, Sobre la alteridad, 218-224.
112
The Orientalising moods infusing Andalusi letters belong, overall, to the wider cat-
egory of the literarisation of sentiment and of vision, in which the inmediate register of
vision and feeling is ejected from the domain of literary possibility, and relegated to the
realm of solipsism or inmediate practical lifenot surprising ocurrence prior to the matu-
ration of conditions which made the novel possible, and therefore brought daily life into
the domain of daily life: Al-Azmeh, Mortal Enemies, 262. Stereotypical practice depends
on the inversion of accepted values and images of the self. On Castilian stereotypes, see
David Hanlon, Islamic and Stereotypical Discourse in Medieval Castile and Len, Jour-
nal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 30:3 (2000), 479-504; Ron Barkai, Cristianos y
musulmanes en la Espaa medieval. El enemigo en el espejo (Madrid: Rialp, 1984).
should almost certainly be read as part of the same cycleattains a crusad-

ing, and even an eschatological, signicance through its juxtaposition with
scenes of the Passion and the Final Judgement.113
In a signicantly less strident register, though they might nonetheless be
read as participants in a rhetoric of jihd, the Hall of Justice ceilings repre-
sent alterity in allegorical terms, not only with the depiction of the joust-
ing pair, but also in a more subtle waythrough the coexistence (and,
indeed, deliberate juxtaposition) of Nasrid and Gothic formal languages in
two separate realms of perception.114 In order to appreciate the paintings,
viewers would of necessity have to be seated directly beneath them; other-
wise, any coherent vision of the paintings would be fragmented and masked
by columns and stucco foliage. In a certain sense, Gothic (or Christian)
style is camouaged in the Courtyard of the Lions, an attitude that
reects an acute perception of its cultural Otherness.
As for the Crnica Troyana (Figures 5 and 6), religious or ethnic con-
notations are completely and strikingly absent: the visual narrative has
translated pagan past into a fourteenth-century Iberian scenario where
Greeks and Trojans take equal part in the display of a hybrid courtly cul-
ture. Even if, as I have argued, a latent allusion to the ongoing war against
Granada and the Marinids might have been read by contemporary Castil-
ians in the account of the destruction of Troy, there is no explicit discourse
on alterity here since it is a chivalric code and not a crusader ideology
that has been projected onto ancient history.115 Along the same lines, the
113
See Barrachina, Reconsideraciones, 172 for the analysis of this scene in eschato-
logical terms, an interpretation which ts well with a military order such as Calatrava. See
also my Sum sine regno for the analysis of the paintings on the rst oor.
114
It is interesting to note that, in striking contrast to the Alhambra ceilings, in the
image program of the Crnica Troyana, architecture is portrayed in purely Gothic terms.
115
Examples of crusader readings of romans antiques can be found in Christine Chism,
Too Close for Comfort: Dis-Orienting Chivarly in the Wars of Alexandre, in Text and
Territory. Geographical Imagination in the European Middle Ages, ed. S. Tomasch and S.
Gilles (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 116-139; Bianca Khnel,
The Perception of History in Thirteenth-century Crusader Art, in France and the Holy
Land, ed. D. Weiss and L. Mahoney (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press,
2003), 161-186; Suzanne Conclin Akbari, Alexander in the Orient: Bodies and Bounda-
ries in the Roman de toute chevalerie, in Postcolonial Approaches to the European Middle
Ages, A. Jahanara Kabir and D. Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005),
105-126.
rhetoric of alterity is almost erased in the Alczar of Seville (Figure 3). To

foreign eyes, only Castilian heraldry, the insignia of the Order of the Band
and other Western luxury objects such as furniture or tapestries, now
disappeared, would make visible the fact that this was the palace of a Chris-
tian king. But it was.
Acknowledgements
This article relies on the Proyecto de Investigacin Cultura visual y cultura
libraria en la Corona de Castilla (1284-1369) under the auspices of the
Ministerio de Educacin y Ciencia (HUM2005-03707) and directed by
Prof. Roco Snchez Ameijeiras. I would like to express my appreciation to
Cynthia Robinson and Simone Pinet, whose invaluable comments sub-
stantially rened and enriched my arguments.
Medieval
Encounters
Hunting in the Borderlands

( for Oleg Grabar)
Jerrilynn D. Dodds
City College of the City University of New York,
New York, NY 10031, USA
Abstract
In an article now three decades old, I suggested that the Paintings of the Hall of Justice of
the Alhambra used Arthurian iconography as part of a fashionable admiration for Gothic
style and the language of chivalry in the Nasrid court, one which was subverted by the
polarizing imagery of a Muslim and a Christian ghting. However, I failed at the time to
take into full account the extraordinary hunting cycle of the Hall of Justice paintings, dis-
crete groups of hunters and their prey that were interspersed with surprising episodes from
romance narratives. These images picture Christians and Muslims as polarized and opposed.
In fact, I believe it is in these very images of domination and apparent dierentiation that
a deep interconnectedness can be found. This study uses the painting cycle from the Hall
of Justice of the Alhambra as a means of exploring, not just common styles and motives,
but artistic meanings that were held in common between courts. In particular, hunting as
an attribute of lordship and sovereignty is key here, in a world in which relationships
between Nasrids and Castilians were still largely feudal and many meanings shared, allying
the parties we once supposed to be other. There, hunting as iconographic shorthand for
ownership of the land appears in surprising and deected ways. Through a discussion of the
Palace of Pedro I at the Alczar of Seville, contemporary literary evocations of the courtly
tradition and of the practice and meaning of the hunt, as these were known on the Iberian
peninsula, and the exploration of narrative and emblematic languages of form, I hope to
reveal an imagery which suggests domination but masks a complicit, symbiotic interaction.
Hunting imagery becomes the means by which both Nasrids and Castilians act out a cer-
emonial opposition to another with whom they are socially and culturally intertwined.
Keywords
The Alhambra, Nasrids, Hunting, Castile, The Alczar in Seville, Pedro I, Muhammed V,
Libro de la Monteria, The Cantigas of Santa Maria
In an article now three decades old, I suggested that the Paintings of the
Hall of the Kings of the Alhambra used Arthurian iconography as part of a
[116] 268 J. D. Dodds / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 267-302
fashionable admiration in the Nasrid court for Gothic style and the language
of chivalry, one which was subverted by the polarizing imagery of a Mus-
lim killing a Christian knight in mounted combat. The story of Tristan
and Isolde, images of Lancelot and the Wild Man, and the story of the
Fountain of Youth from the paintings of the Hall of the Kings were con-
nected to Gothic prototypes, perhaps from French Gothic ivory caskets
that combine some of the same scenes from disparate stories and legends,
mixing the same iconographical types as those that appear in the Alham-
bra. In some cases, the Alhambra paintings included confusing conations
of scenes that suggested a lack of understanding of the original stories from
which the images came. But because the strangely conated images were
all originally present in the ivory caskets as separate scenes, they serve to
strengthen the connection between the caskets as models and the Alham-
bra paintings. The ecstatic nude bathers from the legend of the Fountain
of Youth for example, are interlopers in the fountain beside which Tristan
and Isolde meet in the Tryst beneath the Tree1 (Figures 1 and 2).
However, in ferreting out these models from contemporary romances so
long ago, I failed to take into full account the extraordinary hunting cycle
of the Alhambra paintings: large scale groups of hunters and their prey that
were interspersed with the surprising episodes from romance narratives.
The hunters peskily did not t into the same discursive or interpretive model I
had built around the chivalric scenes, one in which two groups separated
both religiously and politically adopt, in a kind of reactive adaptation,
fashionable artistic structures from the other: border raids across otherwise
strict cultural boundaries. It is my hope here, after so many years, to let the
hunters from the Alhambra lead us across that particular interpretive frontier.
The three tempera paintings on leather from the Hall of the Kings in the
Alhambra cover three alcoves to the east of the Court of the Lions. The
central painting depicts an image of ten men in Nasrid dress conferring
against a gold ground, traditionally identied as generations of Nasrid
kings. There is some discomfort, however, with the juxtaposition between
such a timeless and regal image with the oval ceilings to either side. The
hunting images occur in the lateral cupolas to the north and south, in
dense and agitated compositions whose pallete and attention to casual
ora and fauna suggest Gothic tapestries. The trees in these two paintings,
1
Jerrilynn D. Dodds, The Paintings in the Hall of Justice of Alhambra: Iconography
and Iconology, The Art Bulletin LXI, no. 2 (1979) (hereafter The Paintings in the Hall of
Justice), 186-197.
J. D. Dodds / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 267-302 269 [117]
Figure 1. Alhambra, paintings from the Hall of the Kings. Figures from
the Fountain of Youth inserted into the Lovers Fountain. Photos: Arxiu
MAS.
Figure 2. Tryst Beneath the Tree and Fountain of Youth. Ivory casket,
France, 14th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo: Author.
though far from naturalistic, seem in their own schematic way to mimic
Gothic realism in their depiction of variety of types, as do the grasses and
owers, and the overscaled birds that populate the trees and skies, hovering
oddly over both compositions with Hitchcockian complacency.
Each of the lateral ceilings intersperse chivalric imagery with monu-
mental compositions that contain easily readable reductive expressions of
Muslims superiority over Christians. In the southernmost ceiling, the long
sides of the oval composition are anchored with architectural motifs that
house chivalric narrative: a castle provides the backdrop for a courtly chess
game, perhaps that which took place between Tristan and Isolde, and on
the opposite side of the ceiling is a turreted palace with a lady who gestures
from a balcony.2 She is given a narrative connection to what is perhaps the
most monumental scene from the lateral paintings: that in which a Mus-
lim defeats a Christian in combat, a scene frozen in the moment in which
the Muslim warriors lance pierces the chest of the Christian knight. This
demonstrably ideological image is echoed by one on the opposite side of
the palace, in which a Christian knight kills a Wild Man who is accosting
a woman, a scene that is drawn from the iconographical type of Lancelot
and the Wild Man, much repeated in Gothic ivory caskets of the four-
teenth century (Figure 3). These images of violence, regardless of the nar-
ratives to which they might or might not have been attached in the minds
of their creators, create a clear hierarchy in a visual language drawn from
the language of chivalry: the Christian knight is to the Wild Man (whom
he kills) as the Muslim knight is to the Christian (Figure 4). On the oppo-
site side of the same ceiling, embracing the central architectural motif in
the same way, are enormous, out-scaled hunters: a Muslim on horseback
kills a deer and opposite him a mounted Christian kills a bear. The south-
ern ceiling establishes, in an unusually clear and graphic compositional
juxtaposition, the metaphoric relationship between hunting and warfare:
hunting not only as preparation, training for the skills of warfare, but
hunting also as a chivalrous activity that has the capacity of mirroring the
hierarchies inherent in feudal warfare and society.
Hunters are the principal subject matter of the northern cupola, where
once again they appear in larger scale than the architectural forms that
anchor the compositions long sides. A castle and an elaborate fountain
provide the setting for a chivalric drama on one side, and on the other long
side lovers meet clandestinely at another fountain, which tiny miniature
bathers transform simultaneously into a fountain of youth. The rest of the
eld of the northern ceiling is dominated by hunting scenes nearly double
these in scale. Dynamic images of Muslim and Christian hunters, carefully
distinguished from one another by dress, are shown hunting on horseback,
their mounts frozen in dynamic positions that join with the size of the
gures to make them far more readable from the hall below. A turbaned
2
For sources and interpretations of these images, see Dodds, The Paintings in the Hall
of Justice, 191-194.
Figure 3. Lancelot and the Wildman. Ivory casket, France, 14th century.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo: Author.
Muslim in a billowing robe spears a wild boar from his white horse on the
eastern side of the ceiling, and presents it to a lady on the western side. On
the opposite end a Christian in a red tunic spears a bear from a brown
horse, and oers it, kneeling deferentially, to a lady balancing a falcon on
her wrist on the opposite side of the composition. Thus, the Muslims hunt
is paired with the Christians hunt to the east; and the Muslims and Chris-
tians presentation of their quarry to ladies is paired on the west (Illustra-
tions 9-12).
But these dramas occur amidst a fecund garden teaming with hunting
and aggression: a Christian on a horse and one on foot ght a lion, while
two attendants string bows. The Muslims quarry is loaded on a mule,
Christians ght lions, wind hunting horns, attendants appear with spears
and dogs, drawing bows, conferring clandestinely, dogs course beneath the
horses hooves and attack the hunters prey, and monkeys pick red fruits
from one of the many trees. In a way, everyone hunts, so that the very skies
are lled with hunters: a boy climbs a tree to catch birds, and hawks snatch
doves in ight, extending their talons and beaks in mid-air.
The hunt appears here as an integral part of courtly life, the occupa-
tion of moral, high born knights.3 But the hunting cycle of northernmost
3
The essence of the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Cummings reminds us,
is in the contrast between the alternating scenes of energetic hunting of Sir Bertilak, full
Figure 4. Alhambra, Paintings from the Hall of the Kings. Pairing of the
Combat between a Christian and a Muslim with the combat between the
Wild Man and a Christian. Photos: Arxiu MAS.
of vigor, sunlight and purpose, and the languid ease of Sir. Gawain, lounging in his bed and
open to the corrupting overtures of Lady Bertilak, John Cummins, The Hound and the
Hawk. The Art of Medieval Hunting (London: Phoenix Press, 1988) (hereafter The Hound
and the Hawk), 3-4.
painting, like its echo to the south, communicates an additional broad

emblematic meaning that transcends any specic narrative to which it might
be connected, and the precedence given to the values of the hunting images
is buttressed by their monumental scale and their consequent legibility from
the architectural spaces below. The standing Muslim and his party present
his quarry to the elegantly dressed (and slightly taller) lady, who receives it,
emphasizing her approbation by pointing to the boar. The Christians bear
is rejected by his lady, and his kneeling position, marking him as a sup-
plicant in the tradition of courtly love, emerges, in contrast to the erect Mus-
lim, as impotent and lacking in dignity. The conventions of courtly love are
turned against the image of the Christian knight, in an image meant to
ridicule an aspect of courtly culture: the aristocratic lady as the feudal mas-
ter of an inferior supplicants heart. But the language in which this explicit
cut is madethe imagery and iconography of the lateral paintingsis
both Gothic and feudal. The polarized stance of the images is surprising
here; the explicitness of the political message at the Alhambra, and the
contemporary narrative language in which it is expressed is at rst quite
shocking, because of the paucity of monumental gural imagery that has
survived from al Al-Andalus, and the sense of immediacy, or improvisation
in the creation of the dialogue between the Alhambras courtly and ideo-
logical languages.
However there is an even more tangled interconnection with Castilian
tradition here that can be followed to the heart of the contemporary Cas-
tilian court, a tradition that goes beyond Gothic imagery. Stucco decora-
tions from the Alczar in Sevilledecorations that adorn spaces that
lead into the Hall of the Ambassadors as it was ornamented by Pedro I
in 1366also present images of hunting on horseback as part of a cycle
of images that also included courtly romance and mounted competitions
(Figures 5-8). We know in particular about Pedros personal intervention
in this part of the palace from an Arabic inscription on the door, which
begins: Our exalted lord the Sultan Don Pedro, King of Castile and
Lenmay God grant him eternal happiness, and may it remain with
his architectordered that these carved wooden doors be made for
this room (qubba) of happiness, made for the honor and grandeur of his
ennobled and fortunate ambassadors. The inscription, in bands around
the door, goes on to state that in this door to the Sultans most magni-
cent reception hall craftsmen from Toledo were employed, and this was
in the exalted year 1404 (1366). This work is like the twilight at even-
tide and like the glow of dawn at morning, a throne resplendent with
Figure 5. Painted stucco from the anteroom to the Hall of the Ambassa-
dors, Alczar of Seville, knights in combat. Photo: Author.
dors, Alczar of Seville, knight hunting a bear. Photo: Author.
dors, Alczar of Seville, knight hunting a boar. Photo: Author.
brilliant colors and the intensity of its magnicence. . . . Praise be to God!4

(Figure 9).
The hunting images in the anterooms to the Hall of the Ambassadors
are announced with an Arabic inscription that describes Pedro in the same
kind of cosmic terms that present the Nasrid Sultan in the Alhambra. And
yet they are, in craftsmanship and ornament, as closely tied to Nasrid
tasteas it had developed out of Andalusi traditions for the previous three
centuriesas the Alhambra paintings are linked to Gothic taste. They are
found in a sequence of carved stucco medallions just beneath a muqarnas
frieze that embraces the coat of arms of Castile, Len, and of the Order of
the Band. Carved in at gures in which details had once been picked out
with paint, the scenes on the medallions are set against a ground of plant
4
My thanks to Abigail Krasner for this translation, and for drawing my attention to its
signicance. For a treatment of the meaning of the inscriptions of the door to the Hall of
the Ambassadors see Jerrilynn Dodds, Maria Menocal, and Abigail Krasner, Arts of Inti-
macy: Christians, Jews and Muslims in the Making of Castilian Culture, (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 2008) (hereafter Arts of Intimacy).
dors, Alczar of Seville, birds. Photo: Author.
life typical of the ataurique (or complex vegetal ornamentation) of Nasrid

carving. Knights on horseback wield spears, their hunting dogs coursing
beneath their horses feet; knights on horseback face o in battle, ride o
with ladies, as birds, sirens and grins inhabit the stucco foliage. Most
interesting for our purposes, two hunting scenes parallel the Alhambra: at
the Alczar, a knight is shown hunting a boar in one medallion, and a bear
in another.
By now we are accustomed to acknowledging that the Nasrid artistic val-
ues of the Alczar in Seville were part of a shared artistic language between
these two allied polities of the fourteenth century. A number of foci of
Figure 9. Doors leading into the Hall of the Ambassadors, Alczar of

Seville. Photo: Author.
shared artistic traditions and values had existed in Castile throughout the
previous 300 years, as the Castilians experience of urban culture as an
economic and political factor in their kingdom became one with the
cosmopolitan arts they embraced in those cities. The artistic language of
Castilian sovereignty coalesced around Toledo in the 1080s, in Murcia
and Seville in the 1240s, not just as evidence of the Castilians desire to
absorb the increasingly cosmic implications of Islamic kingship in Iberia,
but also as they saw among Mozarabs and Castilians alike the way that
artistic styles dislodged from religion and politics to cling to peoples and
economies.
The Nasrids were, from the beginning, an almost consistently (though
unruly) tributary state of the Castilians. Though the bond between Pedro I
and Muhammad V, Nasrid king of Granada, was extraordinary (though
rather more strategic on Muhammads side), the feudal terms of the rela-
tionship between Castile and Granada, their political and military interde-
pendence, was nothing new. In fact, the Nasrid kingdom was born as a
tributary state in the time of Ferdinand III. The founder of the Nasrid
kingdom, Muhammad ibn Ysuf ibn Nasr, (called Ibn al-Ahmar in his
lifetime and Muhammad I in histories of Granada), became Ferdinands
vassal and ally in 1236, in a pact that staged indigenous Spaniards against
the Almohad empire.5 A member of an old Spanish Muslim family, Ibn
al-Ahmar had staged uprisings against the Almohads, as in the outskirts of
Granada, hoping to gain a foothold there. The bargain he struck with Fer-
dinand allowed him to take Granada and found the independent Nasrid
kingdom; that same alliance gave Ferdinand the military support to take
Crdoba and Seville, and nally the Castilian triumph over the Almohads.
In dealings both with Spanish states and with North Africa, the Nasrids
often executed a delicately balanced diplomatic choreography from their
position as both the last connection between the Marinid states of North
Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, and as Castilian vassals, for whom they
were a bulwark against the same polity. Ruggles reminds us of how their
survival was interwoven with both agricultural wealth and the arts. The
Nasrids, she points out, succeeded in enriching themselves and their
Castilian overlords to the satisfaction of both, and Granada gained renown
for its wealth and rened living standards. The Alhambra, a city with a
palace, but also with a working agricultural estate, both epitomized and
symbolized that economy, the source of wealth and the elegant lifestyle it
provided.6 And the building would generate many more meanings: in the
face of a political survival that was contingent, it marshals both history and
culture in a virtuoso, almost deant way.
That alliance was also intensied by Pedros tortured personal and polit-
ical isolation within the world of Christian polities in Iberia. His primary
foe was another Christian kingdom: that of Aragn. But he created many
foes within his own realm as well. During his reign Pedro would order the
execution or murder of his two younger brothers, his half brother Fadrique,
his cousin, Prince Juan of Aragn, his wife, Blanche of Bourbon, loyal
retainers, hostages, dinner guests, knights who fell short of victory, and he
did not shrink from executing a courtiers mother to express his disap-
pointment in her son. Confronted by a similar mentality, Villalon con-
cludes concerning Pedro, a modern psychiatrist could scarcely avoid a
diagnosis of progressive paranoia, aggravated by homicidal rage and sadis-
tic tendencies.7
5
For more detailed discussion of the topic of vassalage, see the essay by Ana Echevarria
in this issue.
6
D. Fairchild Ruggles, Gardens, Landscape, and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain
(University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press), 167.
7
As described by L.J. Andrew Villalon, Pedro the Cruel, Portrait of a Royal Failure, in
Medieval Iberia: Essays on the History and Literature of Medieval Spain, eds. Donald J. Kagay
That rage was focused with particular intensity on Pedros illegitimate

half brother, Enrique of Trastmara, oldest son of his fathers beloved mis-
tress, Leonor de Guzmn. Alfonso XI had ten children with Leonor, and
though he did not challenge the legitimacy of his wife, Mara of Portugal
or their heir, Pedro, his obvious preference for his mistress and her family
produced years of silent neglect and humiliation which had their toll on
both Mara and her eldest son. Pedros failure to make a strategic peace
with his half brother Enrique would eventually be his downfall, and the
enmity between them fueled and expanded a civil war that would result, in
the end, in the destruction of Pedro and his reign.
Pedros Castile would, then, be embroiled in internal war against Enrique
and intermittent aggression with Aragn. His failure to keep to the terms
of papal mediation in this last war earned him excommunication by the
pope, and periodically gave his half brother a potent ally. Villalon reminds
us that Pedros own volatile and mercurial behavior made it dicult for his
subjects to remain loyal, and so he could not retain power in the face of his
own nobles, who would signicantly undermine his sovereignty as the civil
war against Enrique progressed. As if that were not enough, less than a
week after his marriage to Blanche de Bourbon, Pedro abandoned her (and
eventually imprisoned and killed her), thus gratuitously alienating the
French and the papacy all at once. It was, nally, through the treachery
of a French mercenary that Pedro the Cruel was delivered into his half-
brothers hands in 1369, and met a violent death.8
One of the very few contemporaries with whom Pedro I had a stable,
and relatively trusting relationship, was Muhammad V, Nasrid king of
Granada, and tributary of the Kingdom of Castile. Muhammad V, like
Pedro, had come to the throne as an adolescent, and they shared the fragil-
ity of young monarchs opposed by members of their own family. Unlike
Pedro, Muhammads reign was interrupteddivided into two partsa
fate much entangled with his alliance and friendship with Pedro. Muham-
mads early reign bore the strong imprint of his chief minister Ridwn, a
powerful member of court under Muhammads father, who carried forth a
Nasrid diplomacy which sought treaties with all possible parties. The Nas-
rids had thus made peace with Aragn and the Marinids as well as with
Castile. But when Aragn and Castile went to war in 1358, Muhammad,
and Joseph T. Snow (New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, 1997) (hereafter Pedro the
Cruel), 210.
8
As recounted by Villalon, Pedro the Cruel, 201-215.
as a vassal of Castile, did not hesitate to provide what Pedro demanded,

according to his feudal obligation to the Castilian monarch: access to Ml-
aga as a port, three war galleys, and nancial support.
Muhammads insistence on honoring his feudal vows to Pedro over the
prevailing Nasrid diplomatic policy sparked a palace revolution that would
depose him: one-hundred conspirators nanced by Maryam, the mother
of the new contender for the throne, (Muhammads half brother Ismal,
soon replaced by Muhammad VI), scaled the fortication of the Alhambra
and took the royal palace by surprise in Ramadan of 1359. Muhammad V,
who was outside the walls at the time, could not ght his way in, and so
ed to Morocco. But before long, Muhammad V was invited to Seville,
where Peter put on for him the most lavish display of hospitality, Harvey
recounts. In addition to arranging for his return and receiving him at the
Alczar, Pedro oered Muhammad a substantial subvention of 30,000
dinars, intended to help the exile set up a government in opposition to
Muhammad VI.9 Among those who formed part of the new regime were
the poet Ibn Zamrak, who would write cosmic tributes to Muhammad V
on the walls of the Alhambra, and the statesman and historian Ibn al-
Khatb. Citing his duty to his vassal, Pedro then rallied his troops and
proceeded to ght hard on Muhammad Vs behalf.
When resistance to Pedro proved useless, the successor to Muhammad Vs
usurperthe unwitting Muhammad VIput himself in Pedros power,
hoping to survive by paying a rich tribute. What followed was a bloody
and vindictive spectacle: Muhammad VI was relieved of his precious trib-
ute and arrested at a banquet in his own honor. Days later, he was mounted
on an ass, clothed in a red robe, and killed in a spectacle that began with a
blow from the lance of King Pedro himself. What a deed of little chivalry
(O que caballera feciste). Muhammad VI was reported to have cried out
in his death throes.10 The Chronicle of King Pedro, a source not entirely
sympathetic to the king, is careful to show us that Muhammad VI spoke
the language of chivalry.
Muhammad V repossessed the Alhambra in 1362. Among his rst
ocial acts would be a declaration of outright support of Pedro against the
Castilian kings half-brother Enrique, despite the fact that Enriques power
9
L.P. Harvey, Islamic Spain, 1250-1500 (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,
1990) (hereafter Islamic Spain), 211. I largely follow Harveys lively documented account
of the relationship between Muhammad V and Pedro 1 in the pages that follow.
10
As quoted in Harvey, Islamic Spain, 214.
was mounting. Harvey reveals the bond between the kings in a quote from
one version of the Chronicle of King Pedro:
The word ran through the city that even when everybody else abandoned him, the
Moors would not let him down, especially King Muhammad of Granada, whom he
had caused to recover his kingdom.11
The tightness of this alliance was exploited by partisans of Pedros brother

and rival, Enrique of Trastmara, and indeed, the Chronicle of King Pedro
reported that There were some who said they did not want to serve
(Pedro), and who said the Moors were coming, and that the king would
welcome them into the city.12 And Muhammads fealty to Pedro, which
did not falter until the end, had caused his reign serious internal instability.
Though adversaries of Pedro I and Muhammad V might challenge them
with cries of complicity, all were aware of the essential feudal, and ulti-
mately chivalric basis of the relationship between the rulers. When Pedro
rallied his troops to restore Muhammad V to the throne, the Chronicle of
King Pedro recounts that King Pedro told all his men that he had an obli-
gation to help Muhammad (V) of Granada because he was his vassal and
paid him tribute, and had been driven out of his kingdom against all right
and justice by El Bermejo (Muhammad VI).13
And yet, the political alliance, which cut across religious and personal
frontiers, also created a cultural third space that transcended written language,
the sleepy gate-keeper of Iberian culture. The resulting artistic alliance14
would create a shared court style, one surely advanced by the Nasrid mon-
archs travels in exile, his stay at the Alczar in Seville, and his court in its
diaspora. Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza has followed its development, as crafts-
men trained new, expanding ateliers in Granada, Morocco, Seville, Toledo,
and Tordesillas. In a kaleidoscope of interactions, the dense stucco style
and architectural types of the Alhambra are found to travel from Granada
to Seville and Toledo, and then to boomerang from Seville or Tordesillas
back to Granada again, cosmopolitan, transformed, and transforming.15
11
Harvey, Islamic Spain, 214.
12
13
14
Cf., however, Rosa Mara Rodrguez Portos essay in this issue, where she asserts that
the ties were forged much earlier.
15
See the following ve publications by Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza, Castilla y al-Andalus:
Arquitecturas aljamiadas y otros grados de asimilacin, Anuario del Departamento de
So that we should perhaps not be so surprised to see hunting images caught

in a lace mantle of stucco carving with Arabic inscriptions at the Alczar of
Seville; nor should we be astonished to see its inverse at the Alhambra:
hunting images intertwined with chivalric romances played out against a
backdrop so reminiscent of a Gothic tapestry. Instead of wondering at the
similarities, perhaps we ought to wonder at the polarized nature of the
iconography of the Alhambra paintings, at the quite unambiguous pitting
of Christians and Muslims as rivals, and the clear message of domination
of Muslims in both warfare and chivalry they communicate.
There are some ways, in fact, that the Alhambra paintings serve as a
response to Castilian spin, to values like those articulated by the Cantigas
de Santa Maria, Alfonso Xs fecund cancionero of the last third of the thir-
teenth century. These songs, in verse and image, outlined Alfonsos ambiv-
alent and at times contradictory role of ruling a multi-confessional society
in the context of a limited, pragmatic tolerance modeled after the dhimma16
Historia y Teora del Arte (UAM) 16 (2004), 17-43; El palace de Comares de la Alhambra
de Granada: Tipologas y funciones; Nuevas propuestas de estudio, Cuadernos de la Alham-
bra 40 (2004), 77-102; El Patio del Vergel del real monasterio de Santa Clara de Tordesil-
las y la Alhambra de Granada: Reexiones para su estudio, Al-Qantara 19:2 (1998),
315-337; Santa Clara de Tordesillas: Nuevos datos para su cronologa y estudio; La rel-
acin entre Pedro I y Muhammad V, Reales Sitios: Revista del Patrimonio Nacional 130
(1996), 32-40; Sinagogas sefardes monumentales en el contexto de la arquitectura medi-
eval hispana, in Isidro Bango Torviso, ed., Memoria de Sefarad (Toledo, Centro Cultural San
Marcos, octubre 2002-enero 2003) (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Accin Cultural Exte-
rior, 2002), 229-232. Cynthia Robinson has also made a provocative proposal about shared
meaning, see Cynthia Robinson, Mudjar Revisited: A Prolegomena to the Reconstruc-
tion of Perception, Devotion, and Experience at the Mudjar Convent of Clarisas, Tordesil-
las, Spain (Fourteenth Century). Res 43 (2003), 51-78.
16
The policies of incorporation of non-Christians into newly appended Castilian lands
are articulated in fueros, or local law codes, and in Alfonso Xs Siete Partidas. In early
Islamic societies, Christians and Jews were governed by the dhimma, the contract by which
the Muslim community granted them protection and freedom to practice their religion. In
such pacts, the conditions for tolerance were political submission and the payment of a
special tax for non-Muslims, the jizya, as well as measures aimed at assuring a Muslim
hierarchy. Among these were strict prohibitions to proselytizing or Muslim apostasy
through conversion or marriage, and the careful stratication of society and political insti-
tutions. Though the Castilians would try to promote repopulaiton and economic stability
by adopting some aspects of the dhimma in newly conquored lands, the rights initially
granted to religious minorities were quickly eroded with time. See: Alfonso X, Las siete
partidas, trans. Samuel Parsons Scott, ed. Robert Ignatius Burns, 5 vols. (Philadelphia, PA:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001); Joseph OCallaghan, The Learned King: The Reign
of Alfonso X of Castile (Philadelphia. PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993).
while at the same time conquering Muslim polities in the name of Chris-
tianity. In the Cantigas a Muslim wins an icon of the virgin as war booty
(Figure 10), and converts in response to its power; subjected Muslims in
Murcia bow voluntarily to the Virgins authority (Figure 11).; the Virgin
defends conquered territories and causes the defeat of Muslims who besiege
Christian strongholds, but protects those who accept their feudal inden-
ture to Christian rulers. It has been suggested by Francisco Prado-Vilar
that the manuscripts reect performed songs, part of a diplomacy of appro-
priation and incorporation in plural societies like Seville, Murcia and other
newly Castilian cities. And Peter Linehan proposes that certain of its
recountings of wonders were meant to promote repopulation in newly
conquered territories of al Andalus.17 The surviving manuscripts of the
Cantigas constitute a pictorial representation of policies concerned with
the possession of new lands and the ruling of new people, relationships
between Muslims and Christians in a world increasingly dominated by
Christian rulers. A particularly interesting aspect of the Alhambra is that it
oers evidence that the Nasrids countered the Castilians narrative cam-
paigns with their own gural and narrative cycles. The wall paintings of the
Partal, which likely date to the rule of Muhammed III in the rst years of
the 14th century, unfold long bands of hunters and warriors, booty and
military encampments. But some images are also grouped in ways similar
to those of the Cantigas, with war tents like those depicted in the Alfonsine
miniatures. Here hunting images are paired with military ones, riveting
this aristocratic pastime irrevocably to the overtly bellicose project, dem-
onstrating that the Nasrids hadperhaps all alongmimicked, and per-
haps even deed, the image promoted by miniatures of the Cantigas as
both accommodating and shameful to the Nasrids, caught as they were in
the net of their feudal obligations to the Castilians.
The lateral paintings from the Alhambra, with their dichotomous com-
positional strategies, wild variations in scale, and deeply saturated egg tem-
pera colors, seem to issue from a divergent stylistic world from the long
registers of soldiers and pilgrims of the Partal wall paintings. There is some
echo of the gestures and groupings of the Cantigas miniatures in the erect
17
Francisco Prado-Vilar, The Gothic Anamorphic Gaze: Regarding the Worth of
Others, in Under the Inuence: Questioning the Comparative in Medieval Spain, eds. Cyn-
thia Robinson and Leyla Rouhi (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 67-100; Peter Linehan, The Begin-
nings of Santa Mara de Guadalupe and the Direction of Fourteenth-Century Castile, in
Past and Present in Medieval Spain (Aldershot: Variorum, 1992), XII, 299.
Figure 10. Cantigas de Santa Maria, Cantiga 46. A Muslim receives an

image of the Virgin as Booty. Photo: Oronoz.
posture of the Muslim who oers his hunt to the lady, the grouping of his
retainers around him, and the gestures with which speech and intent are
indicated. But on the whole, the paintings of the Hall of the Kings expose
the subconscious of the bellicose imagery of the Alhambra more literally
than any other imagery in the palace through its juxtaposition of Arthurian
Figure 11. Cantigas de Santa Maria, Cantiga 169. Alfonso before the
Muslims of Murcia. El Escorial. Photo: Monasterio de San Lorenzo del
Escorial.
and other northern romance stories with the hunting images. It is not that
Christian rulers were the Nasrids enemies; the problem is, rather, that they
are not enemy enough; the paintings constitute a deant gesture that
rejects the domesticated image of the subjugated Muslim from the Cantigas,
the good Muslim who converts; the feudally indentured Muslim who ghts
with the help of the Virgin. The images in the lateral paintings from the
Alhambra navigate the terrain between courtly love and religious dierence
in an impossible attempt to cast o whole parts of Nasrid identitythe
extent to which they were politically, personally and culturally intertwined
with Castile and Castilians. They seem in some way to be an answer to the
policy of incorporation and domination articulated in the Cantigas, a
visual statement that participates in the same courtly world while defying
its message of the cosmic authority of Christianity.
There is, however, a longer history of representations of the hunt that
informs the historical subconscious of the Alhambra paintings. Though
hunting is one of the subjects of the Seville stuccos, and though in Seville,
too, scenes of hunting are interspersed with images of battle, the hunt does
not take the center stage at the Alczar as it does at the Alhambra, and one
does not nd the same explicit themes of aggression or competition
between Christians and Muslims. The hunting medallions at the Alczar
gure as the visual language of chivalry, images of lordship interspersed
with images from romances and signs of valor. They derive, like the hunt-
ing images at the Alhambra, from more general statements of sovereignty
that are shared, inherited by Muslims and Christians from Late Antique
and Sassanian traditions, their original meanings intact. In the Roman
villa of Piazza Armerina in Sicily, the Imperial Palace at Constantinople,
the Umayyad bath of Quasyr Amra, or the late antique of Mausoleum of
Centcelles in Catalonia, hunting scenes are emblems of the unique privi-
leges of land ownership, and the social status it secures for Late Antique
Christian and Muslim societies alike. In Spanish Roman villas like the
Navarrese villa at Soto de El Ramalete in Castejn, the only portrait of the
landowner shows him hunting deer on horseback18 (Figure 12).
Under the Umayyads and Taifas, images of hunting brought those
meanings into the theatre of absolute monarchy; hunting images both
armed absolute sovereignty over the land, as did the casket of Abd al-
Mlik (Figure 13), and deer hunters emerge from the dense foliage of the
casket made for Husm al-Dawla, the son of al-Mamn, Taifa ruler of
Toledo. A reading of the inscriptions of the casket of Abd al-Mlik reveal
its mounted hunters spearing lions to be metaphors for Abd al-Mliks
victories over the Kingdom of Len.19 This was clearly a struggle for
political sovereignty: the lion as pictogram for the kingdom of Len was
18
Oleg Grabar, Programmes iconographiques a lusage des propietaires des latifundia
romains, Cahiers Archeologiques 12 (1962), 394-395; Mara Cruz Fernndez Castro, Villas
Romanas en Espaa (Madrid, Ministerio de Cultura, 1982), 52.
19
Julie Harris, Muslim Ivories in Christian Hands: The Leire Casket in Context. Art
History 18 (1995), especially 220, n. 30, and 221, n. 31.
Figure 12. Portrait of Dulcitius, from Soto de El Ramalete in Castejn,

Roman Villa. Photo: J. Latova and M.A. Otero.
Figure 13. Pamplona Casket. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

privileged here over any reference to Len as a Christian Kingdom, or the

war as a struggle against Christians. His victory is echoed throughout the
casket on medallions that show wolves devouring deer; bears overcoming
camels, eagles with their talons sinking deep into the bodies of doves. His
domination of Len appears as part of this larger orderly structure, in
which the most powerful, according to natural cosmic order, prevail.
The medallions of hunters and images of chivalry and romance from the
Alczar of Seville bear a strong structural similarity to the medallions of the
Caliphal ivories in particular: they are formed of the interlacing of orna-
mental bands against a ground of thick foliage carved in deep relief. And it
is no wonder that Pedro I preferred images that recalled these early models,
timeless images with their inected meaning of absolute monarchy. But
also their placement at the Alczar, in a liminal space, a kind of anteroom
to the Hall of the Ambassadors, suggests the placement of other palatial
hunting images, in concert with their hegemonic implications. Recent
excavations at the Palace of al-Mamn in Toledo have revealed large frag-
ments of what must have been one of the palace entrance arcades. These
were covered with stucco decoration, on the outside inlayed with colored
glass, and on the inner surface, painted in gold and blue. The inside face of
the arcade was covered with images of cosmic mythological animals and
the hunt: a hunter stalking a deer with a bow and arrow; a falconer on
horseback, accompanied by animal hunters as well, including an enor-
mous predatory eagle (Figures 14-17). Floating with grins, sirens and the
other magic beings with which they shared a bright lapis ground, images
of the hunt are here propelled from meanings of sovereignty over the land
to a kind of cosmic kingship of the sort that is found in Taifa panegyric (if
not in Taifa military history).
When Alfonso VI of Castile moved into that very palace in Toledo in
the 1080s, those images became part of the heritage of the kingdom of
Len and Castile, both as the spoils of war, and as the setting, over genera-
tions, of a key center of Castilian hegemony. The Taifa palatial hunting
scenes created a palimpsest of meanings with those that had been inherited
from Roman tradition: meanings already shared by Latin and Arabic cul-
tures, that had also been elaborated in Europe in an only slightly dierent
way. In much of the Latin North authority was contingent and often medi-
ated by feudalism; European rulers and aristocrats were not endowed with
the cosmic imagery of absolute rulers like the Umayyads. For the emerging
aristocracy of eleventh and twelfth century Europe, hunting rights became
Figure 14. Fragment from the Palace of al-Mamun, Deer Hunter. Photo:
Author.
Figure 15. Fragment from the Palace of al-Mamun, Falconer. Photo:

Author.
Figure 16. Fragment from the Palace of al-Mamun, Eagle. Photo: Author.
one kind of concrete and symbolic proof of a lords sovereignty over the
land. On the Iberian peninsula, legislation concerning the right to hunt
shows at times a struggle to retain exclusive prerogatives for lords and
monarchs to engage in caza mayor throughout their realms: the hunting
of deer, boar and bear. But often they would grant hunting privileges
to townspeople as an incentive to repopulate recently conquered areas. In
this context, hunting becomes the terms in which sovereignty over the
land is played outa lordly prerogative to grant or withhold. It is a mean-
ing galvanized around the granting of horns of tenureliterally hunting
Figure 17. Fragment from the Palace of al-Mamun, Harpy. Knights in

Combat. Photo: Author.
hornsas symbols of land grants in northern Europe.20 They seem to have

been in wide use in England after the Norman conquest, when land own-
ership was a particularly contested issue. And those meanings seep into the
20
David Ebitz, The Oliphant: Its Function and Meaning in Courtly Society, in The
Medieval Court in Europe, ed. Edward R. Haymes (Munich: Fink, 1986), 123-141. Ebitz
rst connected the Oliphants to the custom of giving horns of tenure. One Oliphant, for
instance, given by King Henry I in the rst quarter of the twelfth century to Carlisle Cathe-
dral, was meant to conrm tenure in a grant of land in Inglewood forest.
arts across borders with the decoration of Oliphants, precious ivory horns
carved with images of the hunt and of battle as well21 (Figure 18).
Many of the same images found on these Olifants are found in the extraor-
dinary twelfth century paintings at the hermitage of San Baudelio de Ber-
langa near Soria, along with other monumental images of the hunt. It is
not that such ivory Olifants were the transmitters of this imagery, but
rather because those images were part of a pan-Mediterranean language of
the hunt as emblem of land ownership, lordship and authority. In the rich
imagery of an Oliphant in Copenhagen, deer and boar hunts are coupled
with a mounted contest between two warriors, while falcons sink their
talons into smaller birds. The hunt does not just establish authority over
the land hunted, it is a reminder of a kind of order, of hunter and hunted,
of lord and vassal.
The monastery of San Baudelio de Berlanga, with its dynamic monu-
mental hunting cycle echoes the imagery at al-Mamuns palaceinclud-
ing falconers and sirensall the more because its paintings were executed
at a time when most of the surviving vestiges of that palace were in the
hands of King Alfonso VII, and the king himself would reside there when
in Toledo (Figures 19-21). The presence of these same images of hunters
and their quarry on portable luxury goods may echo this and other palatial
imagery now lost. This secular imagery with its bellicose subtext seems at
rst surprisingly powerful in a sacred and monastic institution, until we
consider that it must have marked Berlangas own crisis of lordship: the
monasterys seizure after a famous and anguishing struggle between
dierent arms of the church. The issue, once again, was land ownership,
and as in Norman England, conquest had made authority over land a
touchy issue.22 Perhaps this is why the images of the hunt are both more
21
There is a chance that this practice originated in Northern Europe, see Avinoam
Shalem, The Oliphant: Islamic Objects in Historical Context (Leiden: Brill, 2004), pp. 120-124.
A twelfth-century manuscript, the Libro de los Testamentos, shows King Bermudo II conferring
an Oliphant, with a sword and shield, on a bishopric. Shalem, who reviews a number of
functions and meanings for the Oliphants, oers a more recent analysis, suggesting many
uses and layers of meanings for these equivocal objects.
22
The rst documentary evidence from Berlanga dates to 1136, just two years after
the death of Alfonso I El Batallador: the moment of the recuperation by the young King
Alfonso VII of frontier lands that had been seized by his zealous stepfather. In the next two
years the king and pope conrm that Berlanga and its lands, which had belonged to the
bishop of Burgo de Osma, would now be granted to the new restored see of Sigenza, and
be transferred to the authority of its French bishop Bernard of Agen. Berlangas monks,
Figure 18. Oliphant, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo: The Met-
ropolitan Museum of Art.
monumental and more visually accessible than the Christological themes.

And that monumentality, in turn, is in no way anomalous to their sacred
location. It is the lordship of the Roman church in Castile-Len that is at
stake here, so the imagery is inserted into the cosmic history in between
accounts of biblical Jerusalem and the next Jerusalem: images of the hunt
support earthly lords in a cosmic hierarchy: they support the pope, the
king, and French ecclesiastics who now have feudal authority over Ber-
langa and its lands.23
who refused Bernards authority, deed even the censure of a papal delegate in their struggle
against Bernard. King Alfonso VII himself would visit Berlanga in 1140, at the culmination
of the conict. In 1143, when the monastery of Berlanga was nally given by Bernard,
with all of its possessions (and signicant tolls) to his newly reformed Augustinian
Canons of Sigenza, powerful visual signs of possession of the land, and authority were
called for.
23
Jerrilynn D. Dodds, Wall Paintings. Hermitage of San Baudelio de Berlanga (Soria),
in The Arts of Early Medieval Spain: A.D. 500-1200, Jerrilynn D. Dodds, Charles Little,
Seran Moralejo, and John Williams, eds. (New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum, 1993),
223-228.
Figure 19. San Baudelio de Berlanga, painting of a Falconer. Photo: Cin-

cinnati Art Museum.
The hunting images of Berlanga appear with a new rise in lordship in the
twelfth century, and among the new pack of lords were churchmen: Popes,
bishops and abbots were lords in their oces Thomas Bisson reminds us,
as were sovereign monarchs. And so it ought to be unremarkable that
hunting as a rened courtly pastime in Christian ruled kingdoms also
Figure 20. San Baudelio de Berlanga, painting of a Deer Hunter. Madrid,

The Prado Museum.
Figure 21. San Baudelio de Berlanga, painting of a Harpy. Photo: Juan

Zozaya Stabel Hansen.
developed in the twelfth century,24 and that, at the same time, the hunt
makes its reentry into gural arts. In Betanzos, for instance, the tomb of
Fernando Perez Andrade is covered with images of boar hunting, of caza
mayor (Figure 22). Part of a Roman tradition for expressing possession of
24
Hunting here is considered distinct from hunting conducted uniquely as a source of
sustenance. Alfonso XI, Libro de la Monteria. Based on Escorial MS Y.II.19, Dennis P. Seni,
ed. and trans. (Madison, WI: 1983) (hereafter Libro de la Monteria), I; Hakan Tjerneld, ed.
and trans, Moamin et Ghatrif. Traits de fauconnerie et des chiens de chasse (Stockholm,
J. Thiebaud, 1945); Jos Manuel Fradejas Rueda, ed. Don Juan Manuel y el Libro de la caza
(Tordesillas: Instituto de Estudios de Iberoamrica y Portugal, 2001).
Figure 22. Betanzos, Sepulchre of Fernando Perez Andrade. Photo: K. Vigo.
the land, the hunt had never been forgotten as a subject in the Spanish
Islamic palace. There it had come to carry the more transcendent values of
Umayyad and Taifa hegemony, meanings now mined by the Castilians
who, from the late eleventh century on, began to inhabit their lands and
palaces as feudal lords.
By the thirteenth century, this revival of the hunt as a useful visual image
of lordship was galvanized by a literary image as well. Menocal has linked
Alfonso Xs notion of a kingly literary culture with the Libro de las animalias
que caan (Book of Animals that Hunt), a translation of the Baghdadi Kitb
al-yawarih from Arabic to Castilian. The original Arabic text comes from
the very heart of the adab tradition, in which hunting manuals spoke to
the rened courtly life and the education and pastimes of kings, and this
was certainly a part of Arabic culture that Alfonso wished to inscribe in
Castilian kingship.25 The roots of the Libro de las animalias que caan, its
account of customs, science, etiquette and skill could be found in the
Umayyad hunting lodges in Syria.
The production of books concerning the hunt consequently became
part of the image of a literate king in Castile, in the manner of an Islamic
monarch. In the Libro de Monteria del rey de Castilla Alfonso XI the father
of Pedro the Cruel establishes the best practice for hunting, care of ani-
mals, etiquette, hunting laws and rights for king and nobles as well. It
stipulates that either a titled person, a knight or a squire, must be present
to have a legitimate hunting party, and it designates that the highest form
of the hunt, the caza mayor, is the pursuit of wild bear, deer, and boar.26 A
great deal of the book is given over to recounting the best locations for
25
M. Menocal, To Create an Empire: Adab and the Creation of Castilian Culture,
Maghreb Review 31, nos. 3-4 (2006), 194-202; Dodds, Menocal, and Krasner, Arts of Inti-
macy, Ch. 6.
26
Seni, Libro de la Monteria, xiii.
hunting boar and bears, in twenty eight chapters each of which describes
the hunting characteristics of dierent regions: it includes, among many
others, locations in Castilla la Vieja, Burgos, Soria, Murcia, Seville, Cr-
doba and hunting lands in the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada. The exten-
siveness of this part, in Seni s words, indicates that it may be the rst
comprehensive toponymic survey produced in Castilian.
A number of fourteenth-century images from one copy of the Libro de
la Monteria present feudal relationships within the hunt. Though the min-
iatures gural style is not like the monumental images of the paintings
of the Hall of the Kings, it has that quality of contemporary and later
hunting manuals, in which images are overowing with ducks, birds, and
other game, and in which landscapes are ennobled and marked by castles
and lordly dwellings.27 The images of the Libro de Monteria are careful to
represent not only the king, but also his son Pedro, the future Pedro the
Cruel, since the science and ceremony of hunting are part of the education
of kings. In one image huntsmen present a boar to the young prince Pedro,
in concert with a dog that had been killed in the hunt (Figure 23). The
retainers hold the lamented dog on their knees, and the quarry on the
ground, as is the boar in the Alhambra paintings. In another image, a ser-
vant presents meat to the king out of doors, and here in prole, he is drawn
in the same posture: it is the kneeling of a subjectas the Christian kneels
who presents his hunt to the Lady in the Alhambra paintings (Figure 24).
The use of a Gothic paradigm oered, not only the opportunity to com-
pare Muslims in a favorable light to Christians (the Muslim hunter stands
erect while the Christian hunter kneels), but to identify Muslims as out-
side the rules of the feudal system. Within a series of images that mimic
Gothic narrative and narrative moralizing structure, Muslims refuse the
conventions of feudal subjection.
When we consider the text of Pedros fathers hunting book, we can
see the nature of the dialogue around hunting as even more intense. The
Libro de la Monteria is, on one level, a catalogue of the lands over which
Alfonso XI held sway, and the texts meaning as an accounting of his lands
is supported by its subject: the sites of the caza mayor, the most regal of
hunts. How tting that it should express lordship over those lands through
the kings hunt in those places. In this light, the placement of the monu-
27
Cummings, The Hound and the Hawk. See, for instance, Figures 13 and 44 including
ponds with ducks and birds lling the skies as at the Alhambra, and Figures 17 and 22, in
which castles gure in the landscape.
Figure 23. Libro de la Monteria. Pedro 1 with Boar and Wounded Dog.
Photo: Patrimonio Nacional.
Figure 24. (A) Libro de la Monteria. Servant Kneels before the King.
Photo: Patrimonio Nacional. (B) Christian presents Quarry to a Lady
from the Hall of the Kings. Drawing by Goury-Jones.
mental Christian and Muslim hunting bear and boar in the Alhambra
paintings is a clear and formulaic statement of competition for authority
over the land. And in the fantastic world of the Alhambra, where the cos-
mic power of the ruler is innite, it is the Nasrid who wins.
Muhammad V was a skillful diplomat who earned the trust of Pedro
the Cruel and quite literally kept his head when many others failed to
survive the Castilian monarchs paranoid and homicidal statesmanship. It
was to Pedro that Muhammad owed his return to the throne, and to that
return that we owe his construction of the Palace of the Lions. Pedros
loyalty to Muhammad was intense and personal, though it is more likely
that Muhammad Vs loyalty was necessarily contingent and cynical. How-
ever that may be, it is clear that a feudal dependence on Pedro I was not a
stance that could be oered in the world of the palace itself, in the Alham-
bra, the very walls of which spoke of uncontested, divinely sanctioned
kingship.
All borders are in perpetual security, all in

defense of the realm and of elevated dignity.
I represent the highest grade of Beauty
My form is admired by the most erudite
No better house than I has ever been seen
Either in the East or the West28
The paintings of the Hall of the Kings of the Alhambra might be seen as a
response to the simple fact that the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, accord-
ing to the Libro de la Monteria, lay within the hunting lands of the King of
Castile, a fact that reverberated with political, historical, and symbolic
meanings. They embody the way that Nasrids and Castilians were bound,
both to their prot and to their dismay. One might have expected, under
such circumstances, the visual language of the Umayyad falconersor of
Abd al-Mlik as Lion Hunterto appear here, timeless frozen images within
medallions that represent an unchallenged power whose victory is foreor-
dained. That image of unchallenged hegemony is allied with the Nasrid
vision of kingship described by Ari, Puerta Vlchez and Ruiz Souza in
their studies of Nasrid history, poetry, political philosophy, and art. And it
is the primary message of Alhambra itself, a deant image of unmediated
28
E. Lafuente y Alcntara, Inscripciones rabes de Granada (Madrid, 1859), 147. Authors
translation.
Nasrid power. And yet here in the paintings of the Alhambra, a language
was required that presented the hunters as characters who take part in a
narrative or series of narratives. Feudal ties, which involve sharing of power
across linguistic, religious and political boundaries, could not eectively
be represented, or refuted in timeless cosmic emblems or inscriptions.
Muhammad V used the language of narrative, which could express relation-
ships in more complex, relative terms, to deny the system of feudalism
with its more contingent, relative relationshipsthat had saved his realm.
In the paintings of the Alhambra, Muslims clearly win, as warriors and
as hunters, but it is not only the Christian hunter and the Christian warrior
who are defeated. It is the conventions of courtly society, in the person of
the Christian hunter kneeling before his lady. The courtly subjection
to women is understood at the Alhambra as a direct metaphor for feudal
subjection, of the type depicted in the Libro de Monteria, of the type
Muhammad V had undergone for so many years. The narrative mode
provided the possibility of evoking a whole system, which could then be
critiqued from within, monumental images of Muslims turning the pos-
sibilities of monumental narrative against itself, showing more dignity,
more prowess at war, than the Castilians whose narrative mode they had
incorporated into their own visual culture. In representing the hunt as a
form of ritual possession and domination, those who conceived the paint-
ings of the Alhambra repossessed their lands, turning their own moralizing
image narratives against precursors like the Cantigas, which gave the moral
ground and possession of the land to Christians. Perhaps the paintings
from the Hall of the Kings of the Alhambra constituted a kind of imagined
exorcism of shared culture in the interest of creating a ctive image of
Nasrid identity that had shed, not only political dependence, but also a
cultural interdependence from which they could ultimately not be severed.
Medieval
Encounters
The Forested Frontier: Commentary in the

Margins of the Alhambra Ceiling Paintings
Jennifer Borland
Department of Art, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078, USA
Abstract
This paper argues that important notions are imbedded within the seemingly marginal
backgrounds of the ceiling paintings in the Alhambras so-called Hall of Justice. The
shared European and Islamic iconographies evident in the paintings settings, and the crea-
tures that appear therein, reiterate the complexities inherent in the multicultural context of
the Alhambra. Through the processes of intercultural appropriation, interpretation and
adaptation, these plants and animals seem to transcend their many individual cultural reso-
nances, generating new meanings based on the particular convergences fostered by the
Nasrid court. The paintings backgrounds, on the edges of the central courtly dramas, liter-
ally visualize the cultural outsideness of forests, which, as spaces for seclusion and dis-
tance from the distractions of daily life, also may have served as a metaphor for the Nasrid
court in Granada. At the same time, these newly reconstituted meanings often seem to
speak directly to the nature of the relationships between the gures depicted in the main
scenes. Displaying integrated associations deliberately culled from the visual repertoires of
several cultures, these paintings appear to oer something of an oasis, where intellectuals of
various religious and cultural aliations would have been encouraged to engage in contem-
plation and dialogue with one another.
Keywords
beaver, bee, Bestiaries, Richard of Fournival, The Bestiary of Love (Le Bestiaire damour),
Ramon Llull, forests, magpie, susm
As several of the essays in this volume demonstrate, the gural imagery in

the painted ceilings of the Alhambras so-called Hall of Justice speaks to
the paintings unique contextthat of a Muslim structure built in multi-
cultural and multi-confessional fourteenth-century Iberia. Filled with the
activities of knights and ladies set against the courtly backdrops of castles
and forests, the ceilings may seem out of place to a modern visitor to the
Alhambra. But as we continue to examine these paintings in relation
[152] 304 J. Borland / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 303-340
to their spatial and historical contexts, the medieval viewer comes into
greater focusa viewer who probably found such juxtapositions far
less peculiar.
In this essay, I will argue that important ideas are imbedded within the
seemingly marginal backgrounds of these paintings. These ideas can serve
not only to enrich our readings of the primary gures and scenes, but also
clarify the paintings place in both the so-called Palace of the Lions and
the Alhambra as a whole. The animals and plants that populate these mar-
gins often have multiple, even conicting connotations that proceed from a
variety of contexts, including al-Andalus, the Christian kingdoms of Castile
and Aragn, broader Europe, and the wider Islamic world. Far from being
mere (and meaningless) decoration, these motifs were not only deliber-
ately chosen, butas will be arguedwere chosen precisely because of
their multivalent qualities. The processes of intercultural appropriation,
interpretation and adaptation demonstrated by these representations result
in the generation of completely new meanings for the visual elements to be
examined in this paper, meanings that are specic to the Alhambra and its
frontier context. In the context both of these ceilings and of the building
and kingdom of which they form part, these plants and animals seem to
transcend their many individual cultural resonances in order to create new
meanings based on the particular convergences fostered by the Nasrid court;
indeed, many of the connotations suggested by the creatures and their
encompassing landscapes can be found in texts with denite links to medi-
eval Iberia, precisely the context which fueled these reinvented meanings.1
More specically, these newly reconstituted meanings often speak directly
to the nature of the relationships between the gures depicted in the main
scenes. With subtlety and nuance, this focused commentary was also quite
probably meant to address the political aliations and social bonds so
important to the Nasrids and their Castilian allies.
All three ceiling paintings are similarly oriented with the gures and
scenes radiating outward from the center of their oval frame. This circular
format generates a series of potentially narrative scenes that merge into one
another, defying our attempts to identify the specic moments represented
in each scene, or to distinguish one scene from another. Although the two
lateral ceilings show two registers of action (dierentiated by the size of the
gures and the nature of their actions), there is no clear framing or delim-
1
Such regional connections are key to a number of the papers presented in this issue;
see, for example, Robinsons contribution.
J. Borland / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 303-340 305 [153]
itation of individual scenes, and few beginnings or ends to the narrative

components can be rmly established. These implied, and implicitly over-
lapping or intertwined, narratives resist all attempts to decipher them, and
the thick tapestry of images that forms the background to the central
scenes can, upon a rst (or even a second) consideration, seem equally
confusing. The margins, however, do in fact serve to illuminate the princi-
pal scenes, but only for those willing to make the eort to diligently study
and absorb the wealth of visual information they contain.
Investigating the margins of medieval art is certainly not a new
approach. Michael Camille and Nurith Kenaan-Kedar each published on
the topic in 1992, and Camilles book continues to be a popular text with
medievalists, while also becoming one of the breakout books that engages
non-medievalists in the eld of art history.2 Most useful for my analysis is
Camilles relatively simple assertion that the margins are involved in a
direct and complex relationship with the principal images they frame,
rather than serving as unrelated, largely decorative, details to be under-
stood in isolation from the intended iconographic message of the whole.
Almost as though they invite consideration of this visual process of com-
mentary, the Hall of Justice ceilings display clear distinctions between
the visual space in which knights and ladies live, and the alternative realm
that exists around them. Both in the very specic context of the Palace of
the Lions and the more general one of Nasrid Granada, visually unpack-
ing the marginal spaces in these images demands prior consideration of
some of the artistic norms across both al-Andalus and Europe.
Two of the three ceilings in the Hall of the kings contain complex
backgrounds that indicate a particular setting or environment, while the
background of the central ceiling, depicting a circle of seated men in Mus-
lim garb, is uniformly gold; my focus will be on the two lateral ceilings,
which depict chivalry and hunting scenes (Illustrations 6 and 13).3 The
backgrounds of these two paintings consist of a narrow, outer rim of grass
2
Michael Camille, Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art (London: Reaktion
Books, 1992); Nurith Kenaan-Kedar, The Margins of Society in Marginal Romanesque
Sculpture, Gesta 31, no. 1 (1992); Nurith Kenaan-Kedar, Marginal Sculpture in Medieval
France: Towards the Deciphering of an Enigmatic Pictorial Language (Brookeld, VT: Scolar
Press, 1995).
3
The background of the third painting contains no gures or objects save a longitudinal
band of stars (blue) and two coats-of-arms on either end supported by pairs of diminutive
lions.
and undergrowth, dotted with plants and terrestrial creatures including a

beaver, hares, and monkeys. The rest of the space is given over to sky, indi-
cated by its dark blue color4 and the numerous tree-tops and many birds
with which it is lled. The backgrounds are densely lled, both with trees
and animal life, and the careful and even distribution of trees and birds
indicates the deliberate nature of the images layout. Overlap does not
occur except in a few instances where birds or other animals are perched in
trees; rather, ying birds are centered within the blue spaces between trees,
and all the compositional elementshuman gures, animals, architec-
tureare framed by similarly balanced expanses of blue sky. As a result, no
area of sky is left unlled, and I believe that such precision is indicative of
the intentionality of these various formal eects.
Although it is clear that signicant eort and attention went into the
conception and production of these backgrounds, very little has been said
about this aspect of the paintings. In her seminal article on the ceilings,
Jerilynn Dodds notes only that the backgrounds of the two lateral paintings
are crowded in varicolored masses on a blue-green eld . . . that abound
with ora and fauna . . . to create a lively natural setting.5 If, as is pointed
out several times in this volume, no signicant research has been presented
on these paintings since Dodds work was published in 1979, even less
attention has been devoted to their backgrounds. It is my contention that
the ora and fauna of the backgrounds, far from being as insignicant as
this scholarly neglect would seem to suggest, provide important clues to
the overall meaning of the ceilings. As I will demonstrate, the shared Euro-
pean and broader Islamic iconographies evident in the paintings settings,
and the creatures that appear therein, will reiterate the complexities inher-
ent in the multicultural context of the Alhambra, resulting in a distillation
of the many (and often contradictory) meanings associated with each ele-
ment into a uniquely Iberian formal language, one which casts a new light
onto the meanings these ceilings may have held for their original audience.
Animals played an important role in the literature and visual culture of
both Europe and Islamic lands in the Middle Ages, appearing not only as
4
Whether the dark blue depicts day or night is unclear, and may be meant to paradoxi-
cally suggest both. Oleg Grabar has posed a similar notion for the Lions complex as a
whole: Oleg Grabar, The Alhambra (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978),
p. 85.
5
Jerrilynn D. Dodds, The Paintings in the Sala de Justicia of the Alhambra: Iconogra-
phy and Iconology, Art Bulletin LXI, no. 2 (1979), p. 189.
the central characters in fables, but also in the margins that frame many
other kinds of texts, both religious and secular, and in the decoration of
everything from clothing to architecture. For example, bestiaries, manu-
scripts that were usually illustrated with a great variety of known animals
and which included discussions of the meanings of these animals behav-
iors, were produced over several centuries across Europe, as were herbals,
dictionary-like compendia of plants used in remedies that often included
a section on animals. Approximately 132 manuscripts have been traced to
this tradition, written in Latin, French, Middle English, Italian, and Cata-
lan between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries.6 The Latin versions are
most abundant, commonly dated to the late twelfth or thirteenth century
and proceeding primarily from England.
An interesting transformation of the common medieval bestiary into
a text which might be classied as a literary one is The Bestiary of Love
(Le Bestiaire damour) composed by Richard of Fournival, a French text
that oers courtly connotations for the animals discussed on its pages.7
Written in the middle of the thirteenth century and surviving in some
twenty manuscripts, Master Richards text is sometimes accompanied
by a response, a supplemental text written by an anonymous woman
who counters many of his zoological interpretations of courtly love.
Richard reinterpreted many of the bestiarys descriptions of animals and
6
For catalogues and analysis of bestiaries, see Ron Baxter, Bestiaries and Their Users in
the Middle Ages (Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing, in association with the Courtauld Insti-
tute, 1998); Willene B. Clark and Meradith T. McMunn, eds., Beasts and Birds of the Mid-
dle Ages: The Bestiary and Its Legacy (Phildelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989);
Florence McCulloch, Mediaeval French and Latin Bestiaries (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1962); Debra Higgs Strickland, Medieval Bestiaries: Text, Image, Ide-
ology (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Many editions and
translations have been published, including T. H. White, trans., The Book of Beasts: A Trans-
lation from a Latin Bestiary of the Twelfth Century (New York: G. P. Putnams Sons, 1954);
Richard W. Barber, trans., Bestiary: An English Version of the Bodleian Library, Oxford Ms
Bodley 764 (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1993); Guy R. Mermier, trans., A Medieval
Book of Beasts: Pierre de Beauvais Bestiary (Lewiston, NY and Queenston, Ontario: The
Edwin Mellen Press, 1992).
7
Key translations include Richard de Fournival, Master Richards Bestiary of Love and
Response, trans. Jeanette Beer (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press,
1986); and Richard de Fournival, Li Bestiaires damours di Maistre Richart de Fornival e li
Response du Bestiaire, trans. Cesare Segre (Milan and Naples: R. Ricciardi, 1957). See also
Jeanette Beer, Beasts of Love: Richard de Fournivals Bestiaire damour and a Womans Response
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003).
their attributes in order to bring these ideas into agreement with the dis-
courses of courtly romance literature, in a sense combining two dierent
literary forms into a third, unique hybrid. As we shall see, these creative
reinventions are especially provocative when considered in relation to the
ceiling paintings under discussion.
Although the medieval bestiary does not appear to have been as popular
in Iberia as it was in England or France, several related texts suggest
that this tradition was nevertheless present in Iberia from as early as the
thirteenth century. For example, around this time the Mallorcan author
Ramon Llull wrote The Book of the Beasts (Llibre de les bsties), a text of the
mirror-for-princes genre which oered a didactic series of stories set in
the animal kingdom through which suggestions were made concerning
how a human king ought to rule and avoid poor counsel.8 Llull, a prolic
writer in Catalan, Latin, and Arabic, fostered translations of Arabic works,
and later in his life is believed by many either to have joined or to have
been in some way closely associated with the Franciscan order.9 Llulls work
may have been based in part on Calila e Dimna, a series of similar stories
that, although originating in India, was translated from Persian into Arabic
around 750 and into Castilian under the patronage of Alfonso X in the
thirteenth century.10 Calila e Dimna (or Kalila wa Dimna) was copied
abundantly for centuries in many languages; in those relevant to this study,
manuscripts still exist of both the Castilian and Arabic versions.11 Although
8
E. Allison Peers, trans., The Book of the Beasts: Translated from the Catalan of Ramn
Lull (London: Burns Oates and Washbourne, 1927). See also Edward J. Neugaard, The
Sources of the Folk Tales in Ramon Llulls Llibre de les bsties, Journal of American Folklore
84 (1971), 333-337.
9
E. Allison Peers, Foll damor: La Vida de Ramon Llull (Palma de Mallorca: Editorial
Moll, 1966). On the other hand, John Tolan and Harvey Hames dispute this: John Victor
Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (New York, NY: Columbia
University Press, 2002), especially 256-274; Harvey Hames, Conversion via Ecstatic
Experience in Roman Llulls Llibre del gentil e dels tres savis, Viator 30 (1999), 182; Harvey
J. Hames, The Art of Conversion: Christianity and Kabbalah in the Thirteenth Century
(Leiden: Brill, 2000).
10
Juan Manuel Cacho Blecua and Mara Jess Lacarra, Calila e Dimna (Madrid: Edito-
rial Castalia, 1984), pp. 12-13.
11
Castilian copies include Escorial MS h-III-9 and MS x-III-4; Ibid., 50-65. Important
illustrated Arabic copies include Bodleian Library MS Pococke 400 and BN MS Arabe
3467. See Esin Atil, Kalila wa Dimna: Fables from a Fourteenth-Century Arabic Manuscript
(Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981), 61-71.
none of the surviving illustrated manuscripts of Calila e Dimna appear to

have been made in Iberia, several of the illuminated Mamluk copies date
from the period of the Nasrid Sultanate.12 We will return to the images
from one of these manuscripts, Bodleian MS Pococke 400 (1354), later
in this essay.
The medieval French stories of Renard the Fox (collected in the Roman
de Renard ), which date from the late twelfth or thirteenth century, were
likely another inuence on the multilingual and well-traveled Llull.13
Approximately 15 tales were written, deriving primarily from the work of
Pierre de Saint-Cloud, who was the rst author to write about the triangle
created by the three key characters of Renard the fox, Ysengrin the wolf,
and Hersent his wife, although the stories include numerous characters
that reect the diversity of the animal world.14 The earliest extant manu-
scripts of the Roman de Renard date from the thirteenth century, repre-
sented by some twenty manuscripts and fragments, several of which include
illuminations.15 The key gure in Llulls The Book of the Beasts is a cunning,
female fox named Dame Reynard, who manages to ingratiate herself to
many key political players in the animal kingdom, but eventually over-
manipulates the situation, leading to her own demise.16 Both texts depict
the lion as king, although Llulls rendition paints a picture that questions
the authority and nobility of the lion, while the Roman seems to assert the
supremacy of the king as reected by actual French monarchy in the late
twelfth century.17
Several later manuscripts also suggest that a bestiary tradition existed in
medieval Iberia. For instance, ve Catalan bestiary manuscripts, dating
from the fteenth and sixteenth centuries, have been linked to an Italian
version that rst appeared in the fourteenth.18 Eleven manuscripts also
12
See previous note.
13
Neugaard, The Sources of the Folk Tales in Ramon Llulls Llibre de les bsties.
14
Patricia Terry, trans., Renard the Fox: Translated from the Old French (Boston, MA:
Northeastern University Press, 1983), 4.
15
Robert Bossuat, Le Roman de Renard (Paris: Hatier, 1967), 181-183.
16
Peers, trans., The Book of the Beasts.
17
Terry, trans., Renard the Fox, 7.
18
Clark and McMunn, eds., Beasts and Birds of the Middle Ages, 203. See also Michel
Salvat, Notes Sur les Bestiaires Catalans, in Epope Animale, Fable, Fabliau: Actes du IVe
Colloque de la Socit Internationale Renardienne (Evreux, 1981), ed. Michel Salvat and
Gabriel Bianciotto (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1984); McCulloch, Mediaeval
French and Latin Bestiaries.
exist of a fteenth-century Castilian translation of Brunetto Latinis ency-

clopedic work, Livres dou tresor, written in French in the late thirteenth
century.19 This text included a comprehensive bestiary, but in contrast
to other texts associated with the tradition, was void of most Christian
moralization. Although no copies of the Tesoro (the Castilian translation)
from the late thirteenth or fourteenth centuries have been discovered,
several of the extant manuscripts include prefatory remarks stating that the
text was originally translated for King Sancho IV by Alonso Paredes and
Pascula Gomes.20 These later examples have been interpreted as proof of
the extreme popularity of Brunettos Tesoro in medieval Spain;21 whether or
not this was the case, they denitely demonstrate that the bestiary tradi-
tion had a long legacy throughout Europe, which clearly included several
regions of Iberia.
Animals were important in the Middle Ages not only as literary charac-
ters, but also as marginal gures in the visual programs of many manu-
scripts. In the Islamic world, a thirteenth-century Persian manuscript of
the tragic romance of Varqa and Gulshah depicts an abundance of signify-
ing animals cavorting throughout the images.22 In his study of the symbol-
ism of the animals in this manuscript, Abbas Daneshvari proposes that the
animals function as allegorical representations that highlight the main
themes of the narrative. The agility and speed of rabbits, for example, asso-
ciated them with good luck or survival; scenes in which the rabbit is under-
foot are therefore interpreted as good omens for the main characters.
However, when the rabbit is seen sleeping, symbolizing unconsciousness
or death, or appears to be leaving a scene, the interpretation may be that
bad luck or even death awaits Varqa and Gulshah. Interpreting the animals
as reections of the sentiments or conditions aecting the storys charac-
ters, Daneshvari also suggests that the medieval Islamic beliefs that inform
his reading are applicable to the interpretation of similar imagery pro-
duced in other regions and contexts of the Islamic world.23
19
Spurgeon Baldwin, The Medieval Castilian Bestiary from Brunetto Latinis Tesoro: Study
and Edition (Exeter, UK: University of Exeter, 1982), xxi.
20
Ibid.
21
Ibid., vii-viii.
22
Topaki Sarayi MS H.841. See Abbas Daneshvari, Animal Symbolism in Warqa wa
Gulshah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986). I also thank Oya Pancaroglu for sharing
with me her unpublished paper, The Narrative and Visual Horizons of Varqa and Gulshah,
2003.
23
Ibid., 10.
Two ducks and a rabbit also appear in one of the illuminated scenes
from Hadth Bayd wa Riyd, a thirteenth-century manuscript that hap-
pens to be the only surviving illustrated Arabic manuscript from medieval
al-Andalus.24 These animals are located in the space surrounding the nar-
rative, and seem to function both as commentary on the main scene and
as signiers of the scenes natural setting, in much the same way as the
animals in Varqa and Gulshah. In addition to these examples, of course,
there are endless marginal menageries that proliferate in late medieval
prayer books, books of hours, and courtly literature throughout Europe, as
well as in tapestries and wall paintings.
It seems likely that the patron of the Alhambras painted ceilings would
have been familiar with much of the cultural production outlined above.
After all, such knowledge is certainly in keeping with the characterization
oered by several of the essays in this volume of Muhammad V and his
court and worldly and connected. In addition, that many of the sources
described above can be linked to Iberia is especially important, reminding
us that in and around al-Andalus there existed a profusion of bestiary ideas
which were readily available to both patrons and artists (as well as to mem-
bers of the audience) at the historical moment during which the ceilings
were conceived and executed. The eect of such rich oerings will become
evident in the next section, where I will consider the connotations of sev-
eral of the animals and plants depicted in the backgrounds of the ceilings.
The unique status of the Nasrid court, and the complex and sensitive
nature of its relationships with its allies, will materialize as the main preoc-
cupation of many of these images.
Activity in the Margins

Many of the animals in the ceilings were quite popular in medieval art, and
their symbolic meanings are fairly clear and well-researched. The presence
24
Cynthia Robinson, Medieval Andalusian Courtly Culture in the Mediterranean: Hadth
Bayd wa Riyd (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), 32 and 77. On the Hadth Bayd
wa Riyd, see also Cynthia Robinson, The Lover, His Lady, Her Lady, and a Thirteenth-
Century Celestina: A Recipe for Love Sickness from al-Andalus, in Islamic Art and Literature,
ed. Oleg Grabar and Cynthia Robinson (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2001);
and Cynthia Robinson, Going Between: Literary Types and the Fabrication of Female Iden-
tity in Thirteenth-Century Spains, in Under the Inuence: Questioning the Comparative in
Medieval Castile, ed. Cynthia Robinson and Leyla Rouhi (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 199-230.
of lions, dogs, falcons, and other hunting-related animals, for instance,

invokes the long tradition of hunting as an elite pastime, allusions that
may have been intended to indicate the royal status and noble character of
the Nasrid Sultans.25 In the pages that follow, however, our attention
will be focused on several of the less obvious animals that make appear-
ances in the ceilings. Unfortunate victims of the ravages of time and
restoration, many of these unnoticed animals are somewhat dicult to
discern. For example, it is not easy to identify many of the birds depicted
in these paintings. Certainly the ducks in the fountain, or the falcons
attacking other birds in the sky, are recognizable, but many of the other
birds are very similar, being whitish-brown in color and fairly homogenous
in size (for example, Illustration 15). A similar observation has been
made concerning the visual programs of numerous medieval manuscripts
incorporating animals, including the thirteenth-century Persian manu-
script of Varqa and Gulsha.26 This might lead us to conclude that when
(and only when) a bird is clearly represented and identiable, a specic
connotation is intended. Birds most often identiable in the aforemen-
tioned medieval contexts include not only falcons and ducks, but also pea-
cocks, crows, and cockerels and hens. And in the Alhambras ceilings, we
can distinguish at least one other bird through its visible dierences from
the more homogenous white-brown type evident in the paintings (Illustra-
tions 6, 11, and 15).
Black with large swathes of white on its breast and wing, the magpie had
some interesting and well-known connotations in the bestiaries of medie-
val Europe. These books often included the story of the fox pretending to
be dead, luring the magpies to his body, only to snap them up when they
attempted to eat his tongue. As depicted in the margins of the fourteenth-
century Psalter of Queen Isabella of England (Figure 1), or the thirteenth-
century bestiary MS Bodley 764,27 the foxs treatment of the magpies is
described as the symbol of the devil, who appears to be dead to all living
things until he has them by the throat and punishes them.28 In Richard of
25
See Jerrilynn D. Dodds contribution to this issue.
26
Daneshvari, Animal Symbolism, 79-82.
27
Barber, trans., Bestiary: An English Version of the Bodleian Library, Oxford Ms Bodley
764.
28
Ibid., 65. See also Debra Higgs Strickland, Marginal Bestiaries, in Animals and
the Symbolic in Mediaeval Art and Literature, ed. L. A. J. R. Houwen (Groningen: Egbert
Forsten, 1997), 181.
Figure 1. Fox with Birds, including Magpie, Isabella Psalter, Bayerische

Staatsbibliothek Mnchen [MS gall. 16], fol. 13r, England, 1303-1308.
Reprinted with permission.
Fournivals Bestiary of Love, the fox deceiving a magpie is likened to uncar-

ing men who pretend to be in love in order to seduce women: A man will
say he is dying of love when he feels no pain or hurt, and these deceive
good folk just as the fox deceives the magpies.29 It would appear that just
such an interpretation is intended for the bird in the Hall of Justice
ceiling paintings. The magpie appears three times in the ceilings, and is
always found in the vicinity of the Lady: twice on the hunting ceiling (N)
29
Fournival, Master Richards Bestiary of Love and Response, 35. See also Beer, Beasts of
Love, 107.
and once on the battle ceiling (S) (Illustration 6, in tree to left of castle;
Illustration 11, top center, left of starred panel; Illustration 15, lower
center). Although there are certainly numerous meanings that might have
been associated with this bird, its insistent visual connection with the Lady
may be intended to convey her position as the focus of the attentions of
several knights, perhaps not all of them with the noblest of intentions.30
Magpies are not always represented as victims, however, for outside
the context of the fox story, they are usually portrayed as birds of prey.31
This facet of their character is reected in the fox story itself, their inten-
tions being to consume the carcass of the fox they believe to be dead. The
magpie, then, can be interpreted as representing both pursuer and pur-
sued. As such, the birds association with the lady indicates far more
than victimization, either of itself or of the Lady; rather, the magpie may
bring resonances of duality and ambiguity, suggesting that the Lady is,
not only the object of male desire, but also a savvy player in the courtly
games that transpire in the ceilings.32 Moreover, the magpies duplicity
may reference the instability and negotiation necessary not only in roman-
tic exchanges, but also in strategic engagements, a reading that is especially
pertinent to the sensitive relationship between the Nasrids and their Chris-
tian allies.
Careful navigation in the realms of words as well as of actions was
important to both the Nasrids and their Christian neighbors, and further
associations oered by the magpie may also suggest some of the uncer-
tainty of negotiating across language and culture. In a common Latin bes-
tiary text, magpies are noted as poets because they can speak words with
dierent sounds, like men; in addition to the positive associations such
qualities would appear to carry, they also suggest a talent for the manipula-
tion of words, which may be used in the production of eusive and false
praises as well as in the creation of verse. The Latin word for the magpie,
Picus, is interpreted as a reference to Saturns son, because he used them
in foretelling the future.33 The text states that you may think what you
30
In her reading of the Christian knight, Robinson suggests that he loses in part
because he allows desire to get the better part of his nobility; see the essays of Cynthia
Robinson, Rosa Mara Rodrguez Porto and Ana Echevarria in the present volume.
31
Strickland, Medieval Bestiaries, 222, n. 60.
32
Robinson argues in her essay in this collection that the savvy Lady often appears to
serve as a reminder that frontier courtliness is being maintained.
33
Barber, ed., Bestiary: An English Version of the Bodleian Library, Oxford Ms Bodley
764, 35.
like of the stories associated with the magpie, such as its purported pro-
phetic talent or divinity, but the sound of its voice may mean either the
loquacity of heretics or the discussion of philosophers, thus implying the
ambiguous duality of the birds symbolism.34 For the Nasrid patron of
these paintings, whoever he may ultimately have been, the magpie may
serve as a reminder that ones allies can quickly become threatening, and
that being prepared for the words of either the heretic or the philosopher
may protect ones interests. On a visual level, such ambiguities as those
associated with the magpie may have also served to draw the viewers inter-
ests to the animals and the background in general,35 and attest to the
importance of the background scenes to the overall comprehension of
the paintings.
Resting on the ground to the right of the magpie is another curious
animal: a strange brown creature whose body is contorted by an eort to
position his head in the area of his genitals (the reasons for my determina-
tion that the animal is male will be made clear shortly) (Illustration 15).
This animal is a beaver (castor), and his position, remarkably common in
both bestiaries and in the margins of many illuminated manuscripts,
depicts the act of self-castration (Figure 2). In the Middle Ages, it was
believed that the beavers testicles had medicinal value; depicted in these
images is the beavers act of removing his testicles himself when threatened
with death by the hunter. According to both Latin and French versions of
the bestiary, when he saw the hunter approaching, the beaver would bite
o his testicles and toss them to the hunter, and would then be left alone;
subsequently, if another hunter approached him, he simply displayed the
absence and the hunter would go away.36 The Latin bestiary text then
34
Ibid.
35
In her essay on a fteenth-century Italian Arthurian manuscript, Amanda Luyster
makes a similar argument for the signicance of animals, stating that in a sense it is the
ambiguity of the animals which stimulates our interest in them; Amanda Luyster, Playing
with Animals: The Visual Context of an Arthurian Manuscript (Florence Palatino 556) and
the Uses of Ambiguity, Word & Image 20, no. 1 (2004), 13.
36
White, trans., The Book of Beasts, 28-29; Baldwin, Brunetto Latinis Tesoro: Study and
Edition, 43. See also Barber, trans., Bestiary: An English Version of the Bodleian Library,
Oxford Ms Bodley 764, 43-44. Pierre de Beauvais French version echoes the sentiments of
the other bestiaries: Mermier, trans., A Medieval Book of Beasts: Pierre de Beauvais Bestiary,
95-97. For more on the beaver, see Strickland, Medieval Bestiaries, 84-92. In one of many
inaccuracies found in bestiaries, the beavers testicles are internal, and therefore could not
Figure 2. Beaver, MS fr. 14969, fol. 28v (Bibliothque nationale de France),

London or Oxford, 1265-1270. Reprinted with permission.
explains that hence every man who inclines toward the commandments
of God and who wants to live chastely, must cut himself o from all vices,
all motions of lewdness, and must cast them from him in the Devils face.37
Pierre de Beauvais French rendition is a bit more explicit, explaining that
the beavers genitals represent these vices, and that the hunters face stands
for the Devil, who is always chasing him.38 The beavers persistent appear-
ance in bestiary manuscripts demonstrates its useful didactic function, pre-
senting a clear moral message advocating chastity.
This image was depicted frequently in medieval European contexts,
including nearly every existing illuminated bestiary manuscript, as well as
in manuscripts having to do with medicine, such as herbals, and in the
be bitten o; moreover, the actual beaver substance used for medicine was in a dierent
gland, not the testicles: White, trans., The Book of Beasts, 29, n. 1.
37
White, trans., The Book of Beasts, 29.
38
Mermier, trans., A Medieval Book of Beasts: Pierre de Beauvais Bestiary, 95.
margins of books of hours (Figure 2). In the context of the ceiling, a rela-
tionship is suggested between the beaver and the Christian knight on
horseback above him (Illustration 15). The beavers activities contain reli-
gious resonances not only of chastity but also of ascetic living and noble
behavior, indicating that the knights battle is perhaps not only with his
Muslim counterpart, but with his own corporeal urges as well.
In the context of the culture of courtly love, however, the argument for
chastity is problematic, for it seems to suppress the erotic play that occurs
between lover and beloved. Thus, instead of suggesting any connection
between the beavers genitals and his own, male sexuality, Richard of Four-
nival initiates a gender inversion, equating the beavers behavior with that
of a pursued woman, whose heart is desired by her pursuer: so fair, sweet
beloved, if my pleading annoys you as much as you say, you might as well
deliver yourself from it by giving up your heart, because I am pursuing you
only for that.39 Although Master Richard attempts to resituate this Chris-
tian symbol of virtue within the ostensibly secular context of his Bestiary of
Love, it is unlikely that the well-known religious connotations of the bea-
ver could be completely erased. Nevertheless, Richards reading of the bea-
vers courtly meanings suggests that more than one association may have
been brought to bear on the Alhambras beaver image. In the context of the
ceiling paintings, the beaver becomes yet another animal with multivalent
associations, the interpretations of which become slightly less complex if
considered relevant not only for an individual gure, but also for the rela-
tionships between that gure and others depicted in the paintings. While
the position of the beaver in the ceiling initially conjures ideas of celibacy
and nobility on the part of Christian knight, the animals other associa-
tions with the heart of the sweet beloved provide an alternative, comple-
mentary reading. The Christian knight, after all, suers a serious wounding
in this scene, while nearby, the Lady views this battle and gestures towards
the two ghting knights. Master Richards rhetorical strategy often indi-
cates that he will die from love, and perhaps the noble Christian knight
here, unsuccessful in his battle and in gaining the Ladys heart, is also soon
to suer such a death. Although the image is somewhat ambiguous and it
is probable that he is not literally killed, the Christian knight seems to suc-
cumb to his desires for the Lady, and thus becomes less of a noble gure,
39
Fournival, Master Richards Bestiary of Love and Response, 20-21. See also Beer, Beasts
of Love, 75-77.
therefore losing her. In her contribution to this collection, Cynthia Robin-

son reads this scene as one in which the nobility of the Christian knight (as
Palomades) is further diminished by the Ladys courtly intervention on his
behalf during the battle.40
As this example shows, the positioning of the animals in the ceiling is
not random, but instead reects a strategic use of juxtaposition and asso-
ciation, indicating that the creators were well versed in this subtle, nuanced
method of creating symbolic meaning. We might recall that the beaver
exists in close proximity to a magpie, a bird that, as argued earlier, may
stand in ambiguously for both victim and prey. In this area of lush under-
growth, however, there are also other animals: a rabbit, and the sleeping
lion on a chain leash held by the Lady. The rabbit leaps away from the
knight and toward the castle, the Lady, and the other animals, suggesting
(according to the probable Islamic reading of this animal) a turning of
good fortune in the ladys direction, or at least away from the Christian
knight.41 The lions size indicates that he is part of the narrative episodes
rather than the surrounding margins, and yet his slumber naturally indi-
cates his vulnerability, as well as his submission to the Lady. These four
animals together create an environment rich with allusions to love, its dan-
gers, and its victories, all facets that remind us of the role of strategy in
both courtly romance and in the frontier culture that both connected
and separated al-Andalus and the Christian kingdoms to its north, where
maintenance of chivalric ideals facilitated good (or at least manageable)
relations between the Nasrids and their allies.
Large, frontally represented, symmetrical bees also appear throughout
the southern hunting ceiling, hovering in three dierent places (Illustra-
tion 6, high left of castle; Illustration 9, center; and Illustration 11, just left
of center). These creatures are small and dicult to make out, and my
identication of them as bees may be met with some skepticism. A com-
parison of them with other medieval representations of bees, however,
demonstrates that they are usually shown in a specic and uniform man-
ner. Bees are consistently depicted from above, as though the viewer were
40
See Robinsons essay in this collection.
41
The associations of the rabbit (and the hare) with good luck and fecundity seem to be
primarily from an Islamic tradition; in European bestiaries, the rabbit is a relatively late
addition, and most frequently was seen simply as an animal associated with hunting and
sustenance (through food and clothing). See Daneshvari, Animal Symbolism, 11-28, and
Strickland, Medieval Bestiaries, 48.
looking down upon their backs, with their wings held open on either side
to create a symmetrical form that is repeated in the representation of all
individual bees in a given image (Figure 3). While it might seem strange to
us that the artist singled out an insect for such emphasis, in the Middle
Ages bees were actually understood as a kind of bird.42 Additionally, bees
were seen as model citizens, in part because they were not governed by a
king who inherited his rule, but by one chosen according to natural signs
of greatness: they maintain his right to judgment and are devotedly faith-
ful to him because they recognize him as their elected leader, and honor his
great responsibility.43 Bees respected their king and were hard-working,
industrious, and obedient, all character traits that were also very important
to a medieval knight.44 Even the symmetry with which the bees bodies
were frequently represented speaks to the notions of rational organization
and order associated with them by medieval writers and readers.45
At least two of the bees on the hunting ceiling hover near knights
(Illustrations 9 and 11). In the rst case, a turbaned knight is anked by
two companions who lead his horse, as he presents a boar to the Lady. The
bee is positioned directly above the knights head, perhaps suggesting that
he is especially valorous and responsible. In the second example, the bee is
placed between a Christian knight and his horse as they do battle with a
lion (Illustration 11). Again, this juxtaposition indicates the chivalrous
nature of this knight. However, in contrast to the Muslim knight, this
gentleman has not yet killed his prey. Moreover, the bee is actually posi-
tioned above the heads of his horse and the lion, and it is possible that the
lions regal reputation means this knight will not be quite as successful as
his Muslim counterpart opposite him on this ceiling. The lions symbolism
is a topic that will be revisited later in this paper, but it does seem likely in
this particular instance that the lion may simultaneously represent strength,
42
43
Barber, trans., Bestiary: An English Version of the Bodleian Library, Oxford Ms Bodley 764,
178-179. Not until 1609 did Charles Butler rst publish the discovery that the drones
were male and the queen female; see Charles Butler, The Feminine Monarchie, or a Treatise
Concerning Bees, and the Due Ordering of Them (1609).
44
For example, see Barber, trans., Bestiary: An English Version of the Bodleian Library,
Oxford Ms Bodley 764, 177-179; White, trans., The Book of Beasts 153-155; Baldwin, Bru-
netto Latinis Tesoro: Study and Edition, 24-25.
45
Strickland, Medieval Bestiaries, 55. See also Mary Baine Campbell, Busy Bees: Utopia,
Dystopia, and the Very Small, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 36 (2006),
619-642.
Figure 3. Bee, MS Ashmole 1511, fol. 75v (Bodleian Library, University

of Oxford), England, c. 1200. Reprinted with permission.
as a formidable opponent for the Christian knight, and the weakness of

the knight (an association which might be suggested by texts such as those
mentioned earlier in which a lion king is duped), which would appear to
augur an unsuccessful result for this knights battle with the lion.
Bees and their dwellings were often compared to the order and restraint
of life in the monastery, for work is common to all, food is in common,
and labor and the habit and enjoyment of ight are all in common.46
Also associated with virginity, bees were understood as having no sex at all,
46
White, trans., The Book of Beasts, 154.
and were therefore completely unencumbered by carnal desires or other

illicit thoughts that inhibit a chaste life.47 The interpretation of bees as
models for the ideal human devotional life, in which the hive is considered
the Church and Christ as the leader, was also put forth by Thomas of
Cantimpr in his thirteenth-century treatise, Bonum universale de apibus
(the universal good of bees).48 The bees connection to virginity and obe-
dience seems to explain why the third bee appears above and to the right
of the Lady receiving the boar, high in the sky between a tree and the rooftop
of the octagonal building behind the smaller fountain (Illustration 6).49
This bee is not perfectly aligned with any specic character, but is located
between hierarchically dierent scenes. Near the lady, this bee also hovers
above the young lad in the lower left archway, above whom the arms of the
Order of the Band are displayed. The Order of the Band (La Orden de la
Banda) was a chivalric society founded by Alfonso XI of Castile, to which
it has frequently been argued that both Pedro I, the King of Castile,
and Muhammad V belonged, and the coat-of-arms appear several times in
the ceilings.50 Muhammad V maintained an advantageous relationship
with Pedro I of Castile, which followed several generations of an alliance
originally forged by Nasrid Sultan Muhammad II and the Castilian
King Alfonso X.51 The inclusion of the coat-of-arms in this scene seems to
suggest that the lady and the young man are connected through just such
a noble alliance, which is reinforced by the presence of the bee in this
vicinity of the painting.
Although not emphasized in most bestiaries, another connotation was
sometimes suggested by bees in an English context, where the bee had been
associated, since Anglo-Saxon times, with the Virgin Mary.52 The Virgins
unsullied pregnancy and delivery can be easily linked to the sexual purity of
bees, and her piety aligns with the bees roles as models of the pious life in
47
Ibid.
48
Thomas de Cantimpr and Henri Platelle, Les Exemples du Livre Des Abeilles: Une
Vision Mdivale (Paris: Brepols, 1997).
49
We might even read this building as a gatehouse, in which case it may be meant to
indicate a protected threshold, and another reference to the Ladys virginity.
50
See Ana Echevarrias contribution to this issue.
51
Rachel Ari, Lespagne musulmane au temps des Nasrides (1232-1492) (Paris: . de Boc-
card, 1973), and Rachel Ari, El reino Nasr de Granada, 1232-1492 (Madrid: Editorial
MAPFRE, 1992).
52
contemporary exempla such as that of Thomas de Cantimpr.53 Indeed, the

bee in this scene also tilts to the right, and thus points toward the Lady in
the scene opposite this one as well, where she kneels at the fountain. The
bees position between these two images of the Lady links the two episodes
in which she appears, reinforcing the association of the bee and the Lady,
but also emphasizing a relationship between these two episodes. In one,
she displays proper courtly behavior in accepting the boar; in the other, she
is shown involved in a clandestine meeting at the fountain. Although it
might initially appear contradictory, I propose that this juxtaposition
suggests the moment or process of her enlightenment, by indicating a
transition from improper behavior to perfect courtliness. Collectively,
these connections seem to reinforce suggestions that the Lady is especially
virtuous and devoted.
The northern hunting ceiling is also home to monkeys, animals with
a unique status that positions them as apt allegories of human behavior.54
High in the treetops above the lady and the turbaned man who presents
her with a boar, two monkeys appear to imitate this human interaction
with a similar act of exchange. The two monkeys face one another, mim-
icking the symmetrical relationship between the two gures below, the tree
itself maintaining the central axis for both couples. Although dicult to
make out, the monkey to the right appears to present the fruit of the tree
to the other, creating a simian reversal of the scene taking place underneath
the tree.
Monkeys and other apes had a variety of associations for medieval
viewers, including the idea, taken originally from Isidore of Sevilles
Etymologiae, that the term simian refers to the beasts similitude of
human reason.55 Bestiaries also assumed a similarity between these ani-
mals and humans, suggesting that apes were drawn by their very nature to
53
In a forthcoming essay, Robinson sees the gure of the Lady as defending the lion
against the Wildman, who appears as a symbol of a knights baser instincts; as a result, she
functions as an allegory of all that is good, the sum total of courtly virtues, very much in
keeping with the similar virtue associated with the Christs virginal mother; see Cynthia
Robinson, Marginal Ornament: Poetics, Mimesis and Devotion in the Palace of the
Lions, Muqarnas (forthcoming).
54
See White, trans., The Book of Beasts, 34-35; Barber, trans., Bestiary: An English Version
of the Bodleian Library, Oxford Ms Bodley 764, 48-49; Mermier, trans., A Medieval Book of
Beasts: Pierre de Beauvais Bestiary, 123-125.
55
Beer, Beasts of Love, 36.
imitate humans. For instance, a version of Pierre de Beauvais text explains

how the monkeys enjoyment of mimicking people may be used to snare or
entrap it: by tying and untying ones shoes in front of the monkey and then
leaving behind untied shoes, the monkey would immediately put on and
attempt to tie the shoes, trapping itself in the process.56 Monkeys also
appear frequently in medieval manuscript margins, cavorting recklessly
and generally fostering havoc. Sometimes they are associated with evil or
the devil, and in many cases, they highlight the shortcomings of human
nature.57 For instance, monkeys appear in the margins of a Missal in order
to mock a scribe: chewing on their quills and baring their bottoms, they
remind readers of the awed nature of even the most noble of human
activities (Figure 4). Monkeys and apes, then, are particularly appropriate
animals to use when allegorizing the behavior of humans.
The monkeys relationship to humans is also evident in several of the
fables included in Calila e Dimna, the collection of animal stories trans-
lated from Arabic into Castilian in the thirteenth century previously dis-
cussed. Framed in a broader narrative that deploys these stories as exempla
or mirrors for princes, these fables are explicitly linked not only to the
human realm, but also to the specic realms of king and Sultan. For
instance, The Monkey and Tortoise tells the story of two friends who
destroy their friendship due to hasty decision-making and unconsidered
consequences. A deposed, aged king of the monkeys made friends with a
tortoise, whom he has met after settling in a g tree near a pond and drop-
ping gs, one of the tortoises favorite delicacies, on the ground. The tor-
toises wife, however, feels neglected, thinking that he spends too much
time with his monkey friend. She concocts a plan to convince the tortoise
to get rid of the monkey: she writes a letter to her husband informing him
that she is ill, and the only remedy for her illness is the heart of a monkey.
The tortoise decides to bring the monkey to an island and wait for him to
die of starvation and thirst, but when the monkey becomes suspicious, the
tortoise confesses his plan. The monkey cleverly suggests that he left his
heart back at the pond, and they should go back to retrieve it, for he does
56
Mermier, trans., A Medieval Book of Beasts: Pierre de Beauvais Bestiary, 124. This refer-
ence is in the longer version of Pierres text. See also Beer, Beasts of Love, 34.
57
The association with evil and the devil is mentioned in many bestiaries. See White,
trans., The Book of Beasts, 34-35. This is also suggested in Guillaume le Clercs Bestiaire; see
Figure 4. Monkeys in the Margins, Missal, Illustration by Petrus de Raim-

beaucourt, MS D.40, fol. 124r (Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague,
Netherlands), 1323. Reprinted with permission.
not need it in order to survive and the tortoise is therefore welcome to it.
Upon returning to the pond, the monkey climbs up in the tree and pub-
licly accuses his friend of dishonesty, after which the tortoise is very apolo-
getic. Although the monkey wishes his friend peace, they part, and the
tortoise returns home humiliated and saddened by the loss of his friend.58
This story asserts that wealth (symbolized by friendship), while fairly easy
to acquire, is dicult to manage or keep; the moral is that a ruler must
value and protect his possessions, or they may slip away.
There are strong visual anities between the monkeys in the hunting
ceiling of the Hall of Justice and the depictions of this fable in manuscripts
of the Calila e Dimna. Illustrated versions, such as the fourteenth-century
Mamluk manuscript now in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, depict several
scenes from this story, including two images of the monkey perched in the
branches of the g tree near the pond (Figure 5). Except for their similar
stylization, the trees in the manuscript images and the tree on the Hall of
Justice ceiling have few features in common, but it seems likely that both
are meant to represent g trees. It is possible that the fables from this col-
lection, well known throughout the Arabic-speaking world for centuries
and recently introduced to a wider Iberian public, may have played a
role in the ceilings conception.59 The monkeys in the tree, then, can be
understood as oering further commentary on the scene below, where the
turbaned knight presents a boar to the Lady. The boar is not necessarily a
possession that the knight is unwisely relinquishing to the woman; on the
contrary, the gift of the boar is like the gift of the g, used to cultivate a
friendship, an alliance, a love aair, or even the benevolence of a holy
gure.60 Once again, the valuable entity in this exchange is not the object
given (the boar), but the relationship that is fostered with it.
58
Atil, Kalila wa Dimna, 46-49. See also Cacho Blecua and Lacarra, Calila e Dimna,
253-262.
59
Although none of the surviving illuminated manuscripts of this narrative were made
in Iberia, several date from the period of the Nasrid Sultanate (the thirteenth through the
fteenth century), and it is dicult not to see stylistic anities between these manuscripts
and the Hadth Bayd wa Riyd, an illustrated courtly romance that was likely produced
in Iberia in the thirteenth century, and which also contains animals in the margins; See
Robinson, Medieval Andalusian Courtly Culture.
60
Robinson has begun to conjecture about the possibility of the Ladys connection
to the Christian Virgin, a gure successfully involved in conversions, in part through
her accessibility; for instance, she cites Ibn `Arabs description of the divine beloved as
a female Guardian of a Woodland Sanctuary. See Robinson, Marginal Ornament
Figure 5. Scene of the monkey in the tree, Kalila wa Dimna, MS Pococke

400, fol. 114v (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford), 1354. Reprinted
with permission.
The monkeys appear in the tree just to the left of the smaller-scale scene of
the castle beside a fountain; directly opposite, to the left of the tryst
fountain, is found another gure in a tree. This gure has been identied,
(forthcoming). This Lady could also reect Lady Intelligence, the allegorical gure in the
form of a woman on a horse who is met by the three wise men in Llulls Llibre del gentil;
see Hames, Conversion via Ecstatic Experience, 184.
both by Dodds and, more recently by Robinson, as the dwarf Frocin, who
lls in here for King Mark, who is usually depicted hovering in a tree above
the lovers Tristn and Isolda.61 The visual parallel between Frocin and the
monkeys seems to link two scenes, also connected by the bee that oats
above the Lady and, at the same time, points across the ceiling to towards
the tryst scene. Just as the two depictions of the Lady seem both to suggest
and link dierent perspectives on her character, perhaps the two occupied
trees are meant to comment similarly on the challenges inherent to the
creation of alliances. While the monkeys seem to reect the successful fos-
tering of a relationship, the tryst scene may indicate the risks also involved
when forging alliances, especially in secret.
Although the connections implied by the Calila e Dimna oer up a
fairly positive connotation of the monkeythe aged monkey is giving and
friendly, but he is also no foolthe more common associations suggested
by monkeys involve foolishness and gullibility. Returning to the story of
the monkey trapped by human footwear, Richard of Fournival writes that
he is trapped by his love like the monkey with shoes on, while the Womans
Response attached to his text argues specically that she will not be like the
monkey, i.e. not susceptible to the trap that Richard or any other man
might set for her, implying that a trapped woman is one that is overly curi-
ous and nave.62 The woman on the ceiling does not seem especially foolish
or nave; indeed, just the opposite would appear to be the case. It is thus
perhaps noteworthy that the monkeys in the tree wear no shoes. Instead,
the inverted events in the tree, in which the gift-giving goes in the opposite
direction of the exchange below, appear to indicate reciprocity and to sug-
gest that the relationship between the turbaned knight and the Lady is a
convivial one. Moreover, both a bee and a magpie are found in close prox-
imity to the monkeys in the tree: the magpie utters just behind and to the
right of the monkey, while, on the other side of the tree, a bees hovers
above the turbaned man. The symbolic resonances of the bee (chivalry,
obedience, virginity) and magpie (pursuit), conated with those of monkeys
(both intelligence and foolish curiosity), bring forth a confusing amalgam
of meanings; these nevertheless come together to inform the relationship
61
Jerrilynn D. Dodds, The Paintings in the Sala de Justicia of the Alhambra, 192-194;
Robinson, Arthur in the Alhambra.
62
Fournival, Master Richards Bestiary of Love and Response 7, 52. See also Beer, Beasts of
Love, 34, 125.
based on chivalrous exchange whose referents may include both romantic

pursuit and political alliance.
Over the turbaned man and the bee above him, another bird contrib-
utes to the complexities of this zone in the northern painting. A sizable
white bird, with a long neck, a narrow beak, and partially opened wings,
seems to be in a state of transition, preparing either to soar beyond the
treetops upon clearing the foliage, or to alight on one of branches of the
aforementioned tree, joining the monkeys and the other birds that perch
there. This white bird is dicult to identify, but based upon comparisons
with several bestiary images and descriptions, the representation seems to
most resemble a Caladrius (Figure 6). The Caladrius was thought to have
the ability to determine whether a person was going to live or die, for
when sickness is mortal, as soon as the Caladrius sees the patient he turns
his back to him, and then everybody knows that the fellow is doomed.63
If, however, death is not imminent, the Caladrius sits and faces the patient.
Bestiaries explain that the Caladrius was often kept in the halls of kings,
presumably because of its talents for prognostication, and the birds pres-
ence above the turbaned knight might thus indicate the knights royal sta-
tus. In addition, the birds complete whiteness conjured associations with
Christ, alluding to virtue, honesty, and a general lack of sinfulness. In
addition to its ability to predict an individuals death, the Caladrius was
credited with taking on a persons illness and dispersing it through the act
of taking ight. Such miraculous healing suggests another link to the vir-
tues represented by Christ.64
This birds identity as a Caladrius seems further supported by its
open wings, a detail which would also imply that the gure above which it
hovers has need of its curative properties. The gure positioned most
directly beneath the bird is the turbaned man; all other signs, however,
point to this gure as one of utmost honor and robustness rather than
suering from disease. Richard of Fournivals interpretation of the Cal-
adrius may aid us in making sense of these apparent contradictions, for in
his version of the bestiary, his lady is like the Caladrius, her evasiveness and
averted gaze exacerbating his love-sickness.65 This may be what ails the
63
White, trans., The Book of Beasts, 115. See also Mermier, trans., A Medieval Book of
Beasts: Pierre de Beauvais Bestiary, 27-30; Baldwin, Brunetto Latinis Tesoro: Study and Edi-
tion, 26.
64
White, trans., The Book of Beasts, 116. See also Beer, Beasts of Love, 43.
65
Beer, Beasts of Love, 43.
Figure 6. Caladrius, Harley MS 4751, fol. 40r, 1230-1240. British

Library Board. All rights reserved (Harley MS 4751).
turbaned knight, in which case the Caladrius ight would signal the
moment of reciprocity demonstrated by the ladys direct and willing gaze.
The congregation of several of these creatures in and around the tree
reminds us that the plant life is also an important component of the paint-
ings layout and meaning. But, in contrast with many of the depicted ani-
mals, this ora is often more dicult to identify. In the northern (hunting)
ceiling, the monkeys reside in a g tree, and in the southern (chivalric)
ceiling, a tree with pinecones shades the game of chess (Illustrations 9 and
14). Many other trees are dierentiated by a variety of leaf shapes and dis-
tribution, but rarely do these attributes contribute to a clear identication.
Nevertheless, these trees and other plants fulll a number of formal func-
tions: they serve as spatial dividers between many of the scenes, lling what
would otherwise be large empty spaces in the center of the ceilings, and
oer resting places to many birds and even the occasional monkey. If we
recall that the narrative scenes themselves are not clearly delineated by
frames, borders or other dividing features, the formal function of the trees
appears even more signicant. Furthermore, all of this lush plant life aids
the viewer in situating the events unfolding on the ceiling within a natu-
ral environment, one which may be meant to suggest either a garden,
the constructed landscape of a royal hunting park, an expanse of untamed
forest, or even all three. These associations will most certainly come into
play as we consider the actual space in which these paintings reside, that of
the Alhambra itself.
Framing the Forest within the Alhambra

Now that some of the activities taking place in the margins of the ceilings
have been established and their implications for the gures in the primary
scenes briey discussed, we shall consider what, if any, relationship those
background settings have to the physical spaces that surround them, namely
the architectural contexts of the Alhambra in general, and the Palace of
the Lions in particular. This exercise is a particularly important one to
carry out, because the paintings have, with the exception of the essays in
this collection, been treated almost exclusively as separate entities, rather
than as a constitutive part of the building. My goal in this section will be
to demonstrate that the resonances we have thus far identied in the mar-
gins of these paintings, which serve in particular to highlight the relation-
ships depicted, are not contradicted by the paintings larger context. On
the contrary, the readings I have put forth suggest that the ceilings are well
integrated within the Alhambras larger program of signication.
The so-called Lions complex is somewhat enigmatic in part because
it remains unclear just how its buildings and spaces functioned. The
Palace of the Lions consists of a large rectangular court at the center
of which is a fountain and around whose perimeter are placed relatively
small, probably at least semi-private architectural units. Thus, as many
scholars have noted, the Lions complex is unique among the larger spaces
that compose the Alhambra complex. An examination of its plan reveals a
structure that involves many smaller, intricate spaces, with walls, corners,
and openings strategically placed to create unexpected and internalized
relationships between its components.66 Oleg Grabar has pointed out that,
in contrast to the so-called Court of the Myrtles, the Lions complex
seems more private or restricted, in part because its construction indicates
that most of its spatial units were meant to be seen from the center of these
spaces, rather than from the outside of the palace looking in, or through an
elaborate faade.67 Specic compositional elements, such as the slender
66
Grabar, The Alhambra, 182-184.
67
Ibid., 166, 84, 208.
columns, elaborate muqarnas, dense and intricate surface ornament,

manipulation of light, and privileged view-points, produce an eect which
is remarkably open and airy, and which makes many of these spaces seem
larger than they actually are.68 In the arches just beyond the patio, for
example, within the so-called Hall of the Kings itself, the seemingly
innite division of parts into smaller elements dissolves the masses of
walls, ceilings and other surfaces and creates mesh-like membranes between
mutually penetrable spaces. Combined with the often-noted interiority
of the Lions complex, the strategies used here create a series of spaces full
of illusions, meant to surprise and even confuse inhabitants, apparently
requiring that visitors engage in further contemplation or study in order to
fully understand that things are not quite what they seem to be.69
As discussed in several of this volumes essays, the recent work of Juan
Carlos Ruiz Souza has provided a promising theory regarding the function
of exactly these spaces, one which has eluded many earlier students of
this enigmatic structure.70 The most important element of Ruizs argument
for my study is his suggestion that the Palace of the Lions was con-
structed as a royal madrasa, most specically a school for Su learning. If
true, Ruizs interpretation would be particularly signicant because it
encourages associations with Islamic mysticism, or Susm, in relation to
numerous of the buildings salient elements and distinctive features. More-
over, it has been convincingly argued, on the one hand, that Susm was
inextricably intertwined with Grenadine court culture and, on the other,
that certain of its tenets parallel Christian concepts of chivalry.71 Such
68
Ibid., 184.
69
Ibid., 185.
70
Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza, El Palacio de los Leones de la Alhambra: Madrasa, Zawiya
y Tumba de Muhammad V? Estudio Para Un Debate, Al-Qantara 22 (2001), 77-120.
71
Robinson, Marginal Ornament (forthcoming). Important sources cited by Robin-
son on Susm in al-Andalus include Ramon Llull, Libro de la Orden de Caballera: Nota
perliminar y traduccin de Luis Alberto de Cuenca (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2000); Luis
Alberto de Cuenca, Floresta espaola de varia caballera: Raimundo Lulio, Alfonso X, Don
Juan Manuel (Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1975); Jos Miguel Puerta Vlchez, Historia del
pensamiento esttico rabe: al-Andalus y la esttica rabe clsica (Madrid: Ediciones Akal,
1997); idem, La cultura y la creacin artstica, in Historia del Reino de Granada (Granada:
Universidad de Granada, 2002); Maribel Fierro, Opposition to Susm in al-Andulus, in
Islamic Mysticism Contested: Thirteen Centuries of Controversies and Polemics, ed. Frederick
de Jong and Bernd Radtke (Leiden: Brill, 1999); eadem, The Ansrs, Nasr al-Dn and the
Nasrids in al-Andalus, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 31 (2006), 232-249.
associations suggest a highly-charged signicance for each of the elements

of the ornamental program of the Lions complex, and for the paintings
in particular.
Much of the scholarship concerned with the Alhambra has character-
ized its decorative motifs, including inscriptions, plant motifs and geomet-
ric forms (some of which may be argued to possess celestial associations),
as lacking much, if any meaning.72 The painted ceilings under discussion
here have often been treated similarly, being considered too dierent and
disconnected from the traditional iconography of Islamic art and architec-
ture to be relevant. And yet, the animals in the ceiling paintings, the rich
signicances of which I have attempted to demonstrate, suggest even more
provocative associations when considered in relation to certain tenets of
Susm. For instance, the beavers behavior may not only reference the
celibacy of a Christian monk or the nobility of a warrior; it also resonates
with the specic intellectual ideals of Susm, in which thought and enlight-
enment are attained by moving beyond, if not directly denying, ones
earthly shell. The bees also serve to extend the metaphors of good citizen-
ship, civilized rule, rationality, and diligence. By taking the time to con-
template and uncover the mysteries of the universe, the work of an Islamic
mystic is quite adequately represented by the almost monastic nature of
the bees obedience.
Among the ceilings animals, the most explicit connection to Susm
may be that suggested by the ight of the Caladrius, given that it is similar
in many respects to the bird imagery that often appears in Su treatises on
spiritual experience. Su author Ruzibhan Baqli (d. 1209) employed a
wide range of metaphors concerned with birds and ight to express
dierent aspects of mystical experience.73 For instance, his work suggests
that before a spirit can soar, it must rst take ight by opening, a concept
that seems literally depicted by the Caladrius as it hovers directly above
72
For example, Grabar describes them as very impoverished and limited Grabar, The
Alhambra, 191. Gonzalez suggests that the stylized vegetation is simply another kind of
pattern used in the Alhambra, which carries no value of sense as such; see Valrie Gonzalez,
Beauty and Islam: Aesthetics in Islamic Art and Architecture, ed. Institute of Ismaili Studies
(London & New York: I.B. Tauris; in the United States of America and in Canada distrib-
uted by St. Martins Press, 2001), 76.
73
C. W. Ernst, The Symbolism of Birds and Flight in the Writings of Ruzbihan Baqli,
in The Legacy of Mediaeval Persian Susm, ed. Leonard Lewisohn (London and New York:
Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications, 1992).
gure of the Muslim knight (Illustration 9). Of course, the Caladrius is

not the only bird depicted in the ceilings, and indeed Ruzibhan speaks of
several birds that are also common in medieval representations, some of
which may appear in the Alhambra paintings as well: nightingales, hoop-
ees, peacocks, and crows, to name a few.74 Therefore, despite being visually
suppressed as part of the background of these paintings, these beasts serve
to encapsulate several concepts central to the Lions complex: the asser-
tions of victorious and honorable leadership expressed in many of the
buildings inscriptions,75 the ideals that connect Christian and Nasrid
forms of chivalry, and references to the methods of attaining enlighten-
ment that are so essential to Susm.
I have already proposed that the plants represented in the ceiling paint-
ings are not inconsequential, for not only do they help establish the setting
in which the events occur, but they also serve numerous formal functions.
Similarly, the vegetal motifs sculpted in stucco that decorate the Lions
complex do much more than simply represent paradisiacal beauty. These
plant motifs surely reference the numerous gardens associated with the
Palace of the Lions: the actual gardens that would have been present and
visible from locations such as the Mirador de Lindaraja in the so-called
Hall of the Two Sisters, the metaphorical gardens that appear in the cor-
pus of poetic inscriptions that adorn numerous surfaces, and nally, the
garden-like environment depicted on the ceiling paintings in the so-called
Hall of Justice. According to the medieval sources recently investigated
by Jos Miguel Puerta Vlchez, it is clear that the Palace of the Lions was
known as al-Riyd al-Sa`d (Garden of Delights), indicating the centrality
of garden both as concept and as actual component for this part of the
Alhambra.76 In fact, several of the same plants appear in both of these vis-
ual realms. The plant life of the ceilings nds echoes in certain elements
74
Ibid., 358-359. Ruzibhan Baqlis work, of course, is an example that is thirteenth
century and Persian, but my use of this source highlights the very little, to date, that we
know about the religious life of the Nasrid kingdom. Robinson discusses this issue more
extensively; see Robinson, Marginal Ornament (forthcoming).
75
Jos Miguel Puerta Vlchez, Los Cdigos de Utopa de la Alhambra de Granada
(Granada: Diputacin Provincial de Granada, 1990).
76
See Jos Miguel Puerta Vlchez, El vocabulario esttico de los poemas de la Alambra,
in Pensar la Alhambra, ed. J. A. Gonzlez Alcantud and A. Malpica Cuello (Granada:
Diputacin Provincial de Granada, 2001), 8, n. 12, as well as Robinson, Marginal Orna-
ment (forthcoming).
used in the stucco decoration, derived from pinecones or leafy, oak-like

trees. The ornament itself can even be perceived as mimicking a forest, the
courtyards columns creating a spatial experience that resonates through-
out all of these facets of the building.77
The forest had important connotations in many of the cultural tradi-
tions of medieval Europe. For example, it serves as an important place of
retreat in Ramon Lllulls writing, especially The Book of the Gentile and the
Three Wise Men (Llibre del gentil e dels tres savis), which is evocative of the
interiority and seclusion of the Lions complex, as well as the ideals of
both Christian and Muslim mysticism.78 At the same time, however, the
forests of medieval chivalric romances tended to be places that were outside
the civic world and its laws. The term forest (and its various cognates in
European languages: foresta, fort, forst) was derived from the Latin foresta,
which appears rst in Merovingian times and seems to be derived from the
Latin term foris (outside) or the Latin verb forestare (to keep out, to
place o limits, to exclude).79 Developed as a term that was used in forest
law, referring to land that was protected by royal decree, forests were out-
side normal jurisdiction while also sometimes physically located outside
the walls of a traditional royal garden.80 The hunting scenes in the ceiling
paintings certainly evoke a royal hunting park, o limits to normal citizens
and lled with protected animals. Therefore, the paintings backgrounds,
on the edges of the central courtly dramas, literally visualize the cultural
outsideness of the forest while also suggesting the status of the Nasrid
court. Although many historians indicate that the Nasrid court was deeply
intertwined with the broader culture and politics of Iberia, a unique
character has been attributed to the frontier zone of Castile/Granada
borderlands.81 It is thus possible to see the paintings forests as idealized
77
I thank Andrei Pop for sharing with me an unpublished paper, in which he makes this
observation.
78
Ramon Llull, Llibre del gentil e dels tres savis, trans. Anthony Bonner (Palma: Patronat
Ramon Llull, 2001). See also Hames, Conversion via Ecstatic Experience.
79
Robert Pogue Harrison, Forests: The Shadow of Civilization (Chicago, IL: University
of Chicago Press, 1992), 69.
80
Ibid.
81
For example, see Jos Enrique Lpez de Coca Castaer, Institutions of the Castilian-
Grenadine Frontier: 1369-1482, and Angus MacKay, Religion, Culture, and Ideology on
the Late Medieval Castilian-Granadan Frontier, both in Medieval Frontier Societies, ed.
Robert Bartlett and Angus MacKay (Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press and Oxford
University Press, 1989), 127-150, 217-243.
representations of Granada as a zone protected from the conicts of

wider Iberia, projecting a courtly ideal rather than the likely reality.
The protected nature of the forest and its animals is reinforced by the
inclusion of the rabbit or hare in the paintings. Several appear partially
hidden in the grass in scenes on the hunting ceiling, and at least one is
included in the chivalry ceiling as well (Illustrations 10-12, 15). Rabbits
and hares most often appear in scenes of hunting, are often shown chased
by dogs, and were traditionally seen as protected under forest law. They
were rarely added to European bestiaries before the thirteenth century, in
part because within that tradition they were usually not moralized, but
were seen instead to simply represent food and clothing.82 In contrast, the
rabbit/hare was associated in Islamic contexts with good luck and survival,
as well as protection, as demonstrated in the narratives of both Calila e
Dimna and Varqa and Gulshah. In Chapter Three of Calila e Dimna, The
Lion and the Ox, the story is told of a clever hare who outwits a lion that
is intent on eating the hare for lunch. The hare fools the lion into believing
that his own reection is another lion intent on his destruction, which
ultimately leads to the lions drowning.83 The demise of the lion, an animal
traditionally associated with royal power, and the good luck of the rabbit,
remind us of the conicts and contradictions inherent in the ceiling paint-
ings, where many of the gures negotiate an ambiguous position between
triumph and defeat.84 Although elsewhere in the Alhambra the lion appears
as a clear symbol of power, the presence in the ceiling paintings of rabbits
in several dierent scenes may allude to the precarious relationships
Muhammad V maintained with his Iberian allies beyond his protected
realm.
In Llulls Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men, the forest func-
tions as much more than the setting for his story, in which a Gentile,
depressed and searching for knowledge about God, follows a path into a
forest, where he encounters three wise men: a Jew, a Christian, and a Mus-
lim. After hearing of the Gentiles suering and confusion, they take pity
upon him, and enter into a cordial debate in order to help him choose the
82
See n. 41.
83
Atil, Kalila wa Dimna, 18-22. Cacho Blecua and Lacarra, Calila e Dimna, 146-149.
And, as Robinson points out in her reading of the ceiling, the Lady (as Isolda) also outwits
Palomades in a similar way: Robinson, Arthur in the Alhambra.
84
In his animal narrative The Book of the Beasts (Llibre de les bsties), Ramon Llull also
depicts the lion king as an unsuccessful ruler; see Peers, trans., The Book of the Beasts.
best religion.85 The forest here is presented not only as a place of retreat,
where the Gentile goes to nd solitude for contemplating his concerns
about God, but also as a place where representatives of these three reli-
gions, central to life in medieval Iberia, convene for polite, civil dialogue.86
As stated above, the medieval forest was conceptualized as a place outside
regular society and its laws and traditions; in Llulls text, the Gentile leaves
his habitual surroundings for the forest to gain greater understanding.87
This distance and the seclusion it brings are essential to achieving this
knowledge, for the forest becomes a place where day-to-day concerns are
suspended and other avenues of thought can be pursued. Beyond these
general notions of the forest as a place, however, Llulls forest possesses
qualities that clearly link it to the forests in the Alhambra. Beautiful, fruit-
bearing trees are described as essential sustenance, allowing the Gentile to
settle into his time in the forest without concern for food (the plentiful
springs and pools of water, likewise, prevent his thirst). The tree in Llulls
text is aesthetically pleasing and provides food, but the owers, leaves and
branches of trees also serve as a metaphor used by the wise men to prove
the existence of God.88 The Gentile nds the forests ora and fauna pleas-
ing as well, for the birds sing beautifully and the owers smell sweet, and
the various beasts, including deer, gazelles, and rabbits, are pleasing to the
eye as they lounge beneath the trees.89 Not only do the forests depicted in
the ceiling paintings share many of the specic qualities, plants and ani-
mals of the forest described by Llull; they also seem to resonate with Llulls
characterization of the forest as a place of retreat and contemplation.
When the surfaces and spaces of the Palace of the Lions are considered
in conjunction with the ceiling paintings, it is evident that the visual strat-
egies and spatial eects they display are interconnected. The uniform and
ubiquitous stucco ornament present in the Alhambra reects composi-
85
As summarized in Hames, Conversion via Ecstatic Experience. See also Ramon
Llull, The Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men (Abridged), in Doctor Illumina-
tus: A Ramon Llull Reader, ed. Anthony Bonner (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1985); and Llull, Llibre del gentil.
86
Llull, The Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men (Abridged), 79-80; See also
Llull, Llibre del gentil.
87
Hames, Conversion via Ecstatic Experience, 188.
88
See plates VIII-XII in Llull, The Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men
(Abridged).
89
Ibid., 86-87.
tional decisions that stress every part of the whole as equally important,
suggesting cosmic importance in the smallest of elementsa concept
that has been linked with Islamic mysticism, and which I propose also
speaks directly to the formal characteristics of the paintings.90 Numerous
motifs, combined in complex and dense compositions, require time and
eort to unpack, and these aspects of the Alhambras decoration foster a
contemplative experience of the space that resonates with the contempla-
tive forest of Llull. Such intricacies are clearly evident in the ceiling paint-
ings as well, which almost force contemplationor, at the very least,
sustained examinationthrough their multivalent and enigmatic narra-
tive references, the complex relationships between scenes, characters and
the background, and the multiple associations they are meant to simulta-
neously conjure.91 Furthermore, the seclusion and interiority that charac-
terize the spaces of the Palace of the Lions are also echoed in the paintings:
their circular formats collapse the numerous, unfolding stories, connecting
them to one another in unexpected ways and denying the viewer a clear
beginning or end, thus obliging her or him to remain inside.
This circularity aligns the paintings with the other ceilings of the Palace
of the Lions, all of which evoke the celestial realm, although in decidedly
dierent ways. Along with the many associations that circles (and ovals)
may bring to the ceilings,92 the eect of this circularity works dierently
from the non-representational ceilings elsewhere in the Alhambra. In the
painted ceilings, the surfaces remain the primary mode through which
identiable images are presented; at the same time, the organization of
90
Grabar, The Alhambra, 197.
91
This technique of using overlapping or interwoven images or patterns to induce con-
templation is reminiscent of abundant use of interlace decoration by Irish, British, and
Scandinavian cultures throughout the Middle Ages; for example, see Mildred Budny,
Deciphering the Art of Interlace, in From Ireland Coming: Irish Art from the Early Chris-
tian to the Late Gothic Period and Its European Context, ed. Colum Hourihane (Princeton,
NJ: Index of Christian Art and Department of Art and Archaeology, in association with
Princeton University Press, 2001), 197-98.
92
These include what Robinson explains as the signicance of the Aljaferas octagonal
space: it is within this completed octagon that full, true enlightenment is given; Cynthia
Robinson, In Praise of Song: The Making of Courtly Culture in al-Andalus and Provence, 1005-
1134 A.D (Boston, MA: Brill, 2002), 393, or Camilles explanation of the connotations
imbedded in the gift of the chaplet, the circular sign of the sexual, in Michael Camille,
The Medieval Art of Love: Objects and Subjects of Desire (New York: Abrams, 1998), 56.
these images suppresses narrative clarity in exchange for a cyclical, owing

trajectory. Such complex organization seems to provoke precisely the sort
of associative experience of viewing that appears to be pervasive through-
out this building.
Stars are included in a center band in all three of the painted ceilings,
formally orienting the spaces. Another connection is thus created with
the overall decorative program in the Alhambra, for celestial motifs are
prevalent in other ceilings, as well as on a number of walls throughout the
structure. Such visual associations suggest to a viewer probably already
disposed to think in such terms connections between garden and celestial
motifs.93 The spiritual realm that is simultaneously a garden is articulated
in the poetic inscriptions contained within the Lions complex itself.
Extending through the Hall of the Two Sisters is an inscription in which
the building itself states, I am a garden.94 Moreover, certain animals that
appear in the paintings also have associations with the heavens or the gar-
den, expanding the relationships evident between the ceilings and their
context. For example, in addition to bringing good luck, elsewhere in the
Islamic world rabbits sometimes appear depicted within stars.95 This
conation, though it does not appear in the Alhambra, might well have
been made by viewers who had seen it in other contexts, and it might
have suggested to them a broader understanding of prosperity and all-
encompassing good fortune for the Sultanate emitted from both the earthly
and heavenly realms. Su authors also associated birds with the paradisiac
garden of the Koran, in which scriptural understanding is described as a
long ight. The celestial habitat of the soul-bird is not only in heavenly
paradise, but may also be found as it takes up roost in a metaphoric rose
bush or Tuba tree.96 As Robinson has pointed out, the Tree of Love was
also a prominent image in the works of Iberian authors, such as court
poet Ibn al-Khatb, a practicing Su and member of the court of Muham-
mad V.97
93
Elsewhere, Robinson considers these connections more extensively than I do here: see
Robinson, Marginal Ornament.
94
Gonzalez, Beauty and Islam, 80-82, which includes a translation of the poem by Ibn
Zamrak quoted in the inscription. See also Robinson, Marginal Ornament (forthcoming).
95
Daneshvari, Animal Symbolism, 26.
96
Ernst, The Symbolism of Birds and Flight, 360.
97
Robinson, Marginal Ornament (forthcoming). See also Cynthia Robinson, Trees
The mystical resonances in the paintings and their contextualization in

the Palace of the Lions are further supported by returning to the forest of
Ramon Llull. Harvey Hames has argued that in The Book of the Gentile,
Llulls forest represents a place where a mystical approach to God and
ecstatic experience unfolds.98 Such reections of mystic ideas remind us
that Llull was greatly inuenced by Susm, perhaps most strongly in his
work The Book of the Lover and the Beloved (Llibre damic e amat).99 A
text that describes the mystical experience of love, it resonates not only
with the Islamic mystical tradition, but also with treatises on love prevalent
throughout medieval Europe, of which Richard of Fournivals text is but
one example. Not surprisingly, Llull brings together several intellectual
traditions in his works, and in The Book of the Gentile, this is manifested
in the conation of ecstatic experiences of love or knowledge through
seclusion and contemplation within a space conducive to such thought.
Llulls forest is literally a physical depiction of where the ecstatic experi-
ence happens.100 The forested spaces of the ceilings, functioning in tan-
dem with the spaces of the Alhambra, indicate exactly this, especially if we
accept Ruiz proposal and agree to understand the Lions complex as a
madrasa (or, at the very least, as a place in which knowledge was sought
and contemplation encouraged), an architectural space lled with oppor-
tunities for seclusion, such as those oered by the small alcoves that hold
the paintings themselves.
The forests of the paintings, as well as the forest-like space of the Lions
complex itself, seem to represent places conducive to religious contem-
plation of the kind that may have occurred in the Palace of the Lions
itself. And these forests, as spaces for seclusion and distance from the dis-
tractions of daily life, may also serve as a metaphor for the Nasrid court
itself. The worldly Muhammad V was savvy in negotiating his relationship
with Castilian kings to the north, as well as rulers in North Africa to the
south, and the ceilings of the Hall of Justice express this strategic negotia-
tion by integrating associations that had been deliberately culled from the
visual repertoires of several cultures, all of which would have been known
of Love, Trees of Knowledge: Toward the Denition of a Cross-Confessional Current in

Late Medieval Iberian Spirituality, Medieval Encounters 12, no. 3 (2006), 388-435.
98
99
Ibid.: 186. See also Llull, The Book of the Lover and the Beloved, Introduction,
180-81.
100
to most Iberian elites. They appear to oer something of an oasis, where

intellectuals of various religious and cultural aliations would have been
encouraged to engage in study, contemplation and dialogueperhaps
even concerning the resonances suggested by the imagery found on the
ceilings above them.
Medieval
Encounters
Cross-Cultural Style in the Alhambra: Textiles,

Identity and Origins
Amanda Luyster
College of the Holy Cross, 1 College Street, Worcester, MA 01610, USA
Abstract
Although previous scholarship has examined the appropriation and adaptation of Islamic
textiles in Christian Spain, no substantial work has yet focused on the presence and inter-
pretation of Christian textiles in Nasrid Spain. Attention to trade patterns of portable
goods as well as to archival documents suggests, however, that an interest in Christian tex-
tiles may have existed in al-Andalus in the later medieval period, raising the possibility that
the ceilings of the Alhambra should be viewed from within that context.
This paper recognizes compelling formal parallels between these ceilings and northern tap-
estries and uses those similarities in conjunction with contextual evidence to suggest that
one of the ways in which the painted ceilings might have been viewed was as part of a textile
collection displayed in the Alhambra. While earlier scholarship frequently interprets the
Hall of Justice painted ceilings as representing Christian domination of the Nasrid dynasty,
a reading of the paintings as part of a textile collection, in conjunction with ideas of aesthet-
ics and display, suggests that they might instead have contributed to a representation of the
wealth and power of the Nasrid ruler in a world stretching far beyond the borders of al-
Andalus.
Keywords
Textiles, Cross-cultural exchange, Alhambra, Painting, Nasrids, Aesthetics, Trade
Scholars largely concur that the Hall of Justice paintings were executed by
Muslim artists and that they show similarities to a northern, Christian
style.1 Following a close comparison with European gural tapestries,
1
The most inuential relatively recent article on the Hall of Justice paintings conrms
both the role of Christian style and Islamic technique in these paintings; see Jerrilynn
Denise Dodds, The Paintings in the Sala de Justicia of the Alhambra: Iconography and
Iconology, Art Bulletin 61, no. 2 (1979): 186-197. In earlier decades, scholars attributed
the Alhambra ceilings to a Christian artist. At the turn of the twentieth century, Calvert
[190] 342 A. Luyster / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 341-367
which bear a striking resemblance to these chivalric ceilings, I suggest that

the Nasrid paintings would have been interpreted in a similar way to other
outstanding textiles displayed in the Alhambra. The paintings would have
been interpreted as a sign both of the material wealth of the ruler and of
his successful position and experience in the international realm. This
noted several Islamic qualities in the paintings, but still concluded that they were executed
by a French painter, probably a war captive: Albert Frederick Calvert, The Alhambra: being
a brief record of the Arabian conquest of the Peninsula with a particular account of the Moham-
medan architecture and decoration (London: J. Lane, 1906), 40. In the middle of the cen-
tury, Torres Balbs thought that the two lateral vaults were undoubtedly painted by a
Western Gothic painter, probably an Italian, and Guidol Ricart proposed that the ceilings
were at least most signicantly inuenced by Italian paintings, if not actually executed by
an Italian artist: Leopoldo Torres Balbs, Arte almohade; arte nazari; arte mudejar, Ars His-
paniae, v.4 (Madrid: Editorial Plus-Ultra, 1949), 120; Jos Gudiol Ricart, Pintura gotica,
Ars Hispaniae, v.9 (Madrid: Editorial Plus-Ultra, 1955), 48. These conclusions regarding
the authorship of the paintings were largely determined by the lack of Islamic prototypes
for the images. There was a tradition of illustrating Islamic romances, but the drawing style
of such illustrations is distinct from that of Christian images: Jerrilynn Denise Dodds, Al-
Andalus: the art of Islamic Spain (New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art: Distributed
by H.N. Abrams, 1992), No. 82. For an examination of the pictorial style and culture of
Andalusian romance in the manuscript of the H adth Bayd wa-Riyd, see Cynthia Robin-
son, Medieval Andalusian Courtly Culture in the Mediterranean H adth Bayd wa-Riyd,
Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Literature (London and New York: Routledge, 2007).
Despite scholarly agreement concerning the role of Christian style, technical evidence
has proved fairly conclusive: the painters of this piece used Islamic techniques of surface
preparation and paint application. In the Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, in which the main
dome and outer ambulatory ceiling were ordered restored and painted in 1327-1328, the
same technique of plaster over a exible base of leather was used to fresco the dome: Dodds,
The Paintings, 188. The materials (particularly the nails) used to execute the Alhambra
ceilings seem to have been made in Granada: Jess Bermdez Pareja, Pinturas sobre piel en
la Alhambra de Granada, Publicaciones del Patronato de la Alhambra; 1 (Granada: Patro-
nato de la Alhambra y Generalife, 1987), 128. Additionally, alongside some drawn out-
lines, there also appears to be remains of Arabic letter forms (the intended function of
which is unclear) inscribed in the plaster bed of the images of the Alhambra: Bermdez
Pareja, Pinturas sobre piel, 129. It was on the basis of technical analyses that two scholars,
Contreras and Bermudez Pareja, suggested a Muslim attribution for the paintings, an attri-
bution which has since been widely accepted: Jess Bermdez Pareja and M. Maldonado
Rodriguez, Informe sobre las tcnicas, restauraciones y danos sufridos por los techos pin-
tados de la Sala de los Reyes en el Palacio de los Leones de la Alhambra, Cuadernos de la
Alhambra VI (1970): 14. See also Rafael Contreras, Estudio descriptivo de los monumentos
arabes de Granada, Sevilla y Cordoba, o sea, la Alhambra, el Alcazar y la Gran mezquita de
occidente, 2nd edn (Madrid: Imprenta y litograa de A. Rodero, 1878), 252-260. Pavn
Maldonado goes so far as to say that the naturalism and technique of the central fresco are
A. Luyster / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 341-367 343 [191]
argument is informed by patterns of cultural exchange surrounding tapes-

tries and textiles in the medieval world, which provide fertile ground for
understanding the adoption, imitation, and display of motifs derived from
distant lands. Such an interpretation provides an alternative to the tradi-
tional (and, indeed, recent) interpretation of the paintings as evidence of
Christian political and cultural domination over the Nasrids, the last Mus-
lim dynasty to rule the Iberian Peninsula.2
Luxury textiles functioned as an international currency in the medieval
world; they were valued across cultural boundaries without regard to alli-
ances or enmities between specic countries or religions.3 Some scholars
have suggested that this materialistic valuing of textiles across cultural
boundaries might take place without any knowledge of (and without
approval or disapproval of ) the place of the textiles manufacture, although
in other contexts the provenance of textiles was certainly recognized, and
constituted an important component of their reception.4 The question of
the viewers recognition of and response to a foreign style is central to an
understanding of Muhammad Vs chivalric ceilings. If the Christian style
of Muhammad Vs ceiling paintings did not suggest Christian domina-
tion, did it suggest any foreign connection at all, or were the paintings
simply valued for their bright colors and skillful depiction? This question
directly derived from the images at Suero Tellez, the Alczar at Seville, and the synagogue
of El Trnsito, and he attributes the Alhambra paintings to the inuence or actual brushes
of the Mudjar (Muslim) painters, under Don Pedros management, who executed some (if
not all) of the imagery listed above: Basilio Pavn Maldonado, Arte toledano: islamico y
mudejar (Madrid: Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Instituto Hispano-Araba de Cultura,
1973), 243, 52, 61, 66. Indeed, the dark outlines, almond-shaped eyes and simple model-
ing of the smooth, large-scale gures provide substantial formal parallels, and it seems
plausible that Don Pedros Mudjar painters were responsible for the Alhambra paintings.
2
For this point, see discussion below. The preeminent expression of this view can be
found in Dodds, The Paintings, 186-197, but more recent work can rehearse Dodds
argument somewhat uncritically. Kenesson writes, for instance (citing Dodds), It is not
unreasonable to think that he [Muhammad V] must have envied the power and successes
of this encroaching force, and so, if somewhat uncritically, admired their arts as well and
desired to imitate them. See Summer S. Kenesson, Nasrid Luster Pottery: The Alhambra
Vases, Muqarnas IX (1992), 100.
3
See below.
4
For textile inscriptions, see discussion below in main text and in notes 50 and 51. I
refer also to Mara Judith Feliciano, Muslim Shrouds for Christian Kings? a Reassessment
of Andalusi Textiles in Thirteenth-Century Castilian Life and Ritual, in Under the Inuence:
Questioning the Comparative in Medieval Castile, ed. Cynthia Robinson and Leyla Rouhi
(Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005), 101-131.
will be addressed below following an analysis of the formal parallels between

the ceiling paintings and tapestries and an exploration of the mechanisms
of medieval textile exchange.
It must be acknowledged from the beginning that the study of textiles
in Nasrid Spain is still an emerging eld of inquiry, and that the question
of cross-cultural dynamic in Nasrid textile culture is even more nascent.
For this reason, the present essay is oered as an overture to the topic
rather than a conclusive statement. The evidence available is scarce, due in
part to the relatively ephemeral nature of textiles themselves, which do not
survive the test of time as well as works of art in other media, such as ivory,
metal, and paint. Moreover, textiles were often employed in events such as
public processions or the temporary ornamentation of palatial settings,
where they were typically part of larger ensembles of decorations. For this
reason textual references to the function and appearance of specic textiles
are often lacking. Nevertheless, my own study of various archival docu-
mentsincluding sources describing ceremonial events in medieval Spain,
inventories of elite collections, and the economic exchange of textiles
demonstrates the as-yet-untapped possibilities for reconstructing an under-
standing of textile culture in Nasrid Spain and its impact on the decorative
program of the Alhambra, and promises a better understanding of cross-
cultural exchange through this medium.
Ivories and Tapestries, Colors and Presence

In her well-known analysis of the Alhambra ceilings Jerrilynn Dodds sug-
gests that a formal parallel to tapestries may exist, noting that the paintings
have a tapestry-like appearance. She ultimately elects, however, to empha-
size the iconographic similarity of the ceilings to the scenes found on four-
teenth-century French ivory caskets.5 The advantage of these ivories,
according to Dodds argument, is that they exhibit gural scenes from
romances which are in some cases quite close to those of the ceiling paint-
ings. But ivories, despite the iconography which they partially share with
5
Dodds: There is little doubt, however, that works of art like the Avignon frescoes did
serve as formal inspiration for the artist of the Alhambra paintings. The tapestry-like eect
of the screens of owers at Avignon might be suggested in the Hall of Justice only by a few
stylized plants, but the desire to attain the same eect is evident. Dodds, The Paintings,
190. She does not suggest any mechanism of transmission through which the Avignon
images might have reached Spain or the Nasrid kingdom.
the paintings, lack many formal elements of central importance to the

Alhambra compositions. Even painted ivories could not have displayed the
same fully polychromatic surface that the Alhambra ceilings exhibit: medi-
eval ivories were never completely painted, as the surface of the ivory was
considered beautiful in itself.6 The background of an ivory bas-relief and
certain details in the gures might be painted, including red lips, gold belt,
and gold orphreys (ornamental bands) on the edges of clothing.7 There-
fore, the nal eect of a secular-themed painted ivory could well have been
polychromatic, but it would have been far from the sensation of a continu-
ous surface of brilliant and contrasting colors achieved in the Alhambra
ceilings. Moreover, according to limited evidence, secular ivory bas-reliefs
appear to have been less frequently painted than religious ones; thus, it is
quite possible that even if ivory bas-reliefs were used as source material for
the Alhambra ceilings, the models seen and used by the designer(s) would
have been without added color.8 Tapestries, on the other hand, provided an
entirely dierent visual texture, one more in keeping with the dominant
features of the Alhambra paintings. The artists at the Alhambra created an
intricately patterned and modulated surface, one which is busy and vari-
egated with respect to texture and color, characteristics which do not align
with the cleaner, simpler forms of ivory carving.
It is not my intention here to dismiss the possibility that ivory caskets
could have been used as one source material for the Hall of Justice ceilings.
I do, however, doubt that they were the sole source material, which Dodds
seems to suggest when she writes that the artists might have had one, or
possibly even two, ivory caskets at their disposal, implying that such cas-
kets on their own oer a satisfactory explanation of both the formal and
stylistic particularities of the Nasrid ceilings.9 The media of monumental
painting and tapestry are characterized by similarities that ivories cannot
share, and the large-scale, substantial presence and full polychromy of the
6
Danielle Gaborit-Chopin, The Polychrome Decoration of Gothic Ivories, in Images
in Ivory: Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, ed. Peter Barnet, Exhibition catalogue (Prince-
ton, NJ: published in association with Princeton University Press, 1997), 54-55.
7
Gaborit-Chopin, The Polychrome Decoration of Gothic Ivories, 57.
8
Gaborit-Chopin, The Polychrome Decoration of Gothic Ivories, 56; see also the
mirror case depicting a chess-playing couple which shows only a highly-polished surface
and no trace of polychromy, included as No. 58 in Peter Barnet, ed., Images in Ivory: Pre-
cious Objects of the Gothic Age, Exhib. catalogue. (Princeton, NJ: published in association
with Princeton University Press, 1997), 232-233.
9
Dodds, The Paintings, 194.
Alhambra paintings seem too well-developed to be modeled solely upon

small-scale, possibly monochromatic secular ivories. The presence of an
ivory casket in a chamber can be overlooked until one is nearby, when one
may examine it briey but intensely and at close range; the Hall of Justice
ceilings, in contrast, like the large tapestries to which they are akin, preside
over every encounter which might take place in the spaces below, from the
moment of entrance to the moment of exit, and ones examination of them
may extend intermittently throughout ones occupancy of the room.
Indeed, historical evidence to be discussed in the subsequent section of
this essay suggests that the Nasrids would have had more numerous occa-
sions to view Christian tapestries than Christian ivories. I am not aware of
any documents witnessing either the importation of Christian ivories
depicting romance themes into al-Andalus or the Nasrid viewing of such
ivories. Although it is certainly plausible that a few Nasrids might have
seen such objects, these viewings would most likely have been select and
unusual, as caskets and mirror-backs are thought to have been kept in
bedchambers and other private rooms.10
Northern tapestries carried scenes from romances, just as ivories did,
and therefore, in addition to the striking visual anities noted above, they
also exhibit connections with the ceilings in terms of both theme and ico-
nography. Inventories suggest that tapestries often carried stories recogniz-
able as those of Tristan, Perceval, or the Roman de la Rose, for example.11
10
The storage of mirror-backs and caskets in private chambers has been assumed due to
their function in ladies toilette. Caskets are thought to have been used as precious contain-
ers for ladies jewelry or other valuable objects. See Richard H. Randall, Popular Romances
Carved in Ivory, in Images in Ivory: Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, ed. Peter Barnet
(Princeton, NJ: published in association with Princeton University Press, 1997), 64-65.
11
Genevieve Souchal, Masterpieces of tapestry from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century;
an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, trans. Richard A. H. Oxby, Exhibition
catalogue (New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1974), 19. The Tristan romance,
comparatively popular in ivories and other forms of medieval secular art, is in fact strangely
unusual in tapestries: for details and information about both Tristan and Lancelot in tapes-
try see Marthe Crick-Kuntziger, Une curieuse Tapisserie de la Suite Bruxelloise de Tristan
et Iseut, in Miscellanea Leo van Puyvelde (Brussels: 1949), 324. German embroideries of
Tristan do remain, however, as well as other textile representations of Tristan; see Doris
Fouquet, Wort und Bild in der mittelalterlichen Tristantradition. Der lteste Tristanteppich
von Kloster Wienhausen und die textile Tristanberlieferung des Mittelalters, Philologische
Studien und Quellen, Heft 62 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1971), 30 .; Norbert H. Ott, Katalog
der Tristan-Bildzeugnisse, in Text und Illustration im Mittelalter, ed. N. H. Ott (Munich:
C. H. Becksche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1975), 140-171. Other listings of the subjects of
Fifteenth-century European inventories likewise suggest that other tapes-

try scenes were either actually generic or were at least labeled generically,
such as scene of hunting by people on horseback, gures by a fountain,
or a game of chess and many gures, on a black eld.12 The presence of
compositions which might be read as either specic narratives or more
generic scenes echoes the similar appearance of the Hall of Justice ceilings,
whereas discussed in several of the other essays in this volumegames
of chess and gures beside a fountain may or may not suggest specic
narratives.
Among possible textile comparanda, the Alhambra paintings most
closely resemble one of the more popular types of tapestry in the four-
teenth century, the German minneteppich. The name for these textiles,
minneteppich, derives from the name of the singer of romance in Germany,
the minnesinger, whose thematic concern was principally that of romances
(minne can be loosely translated as love). Though these tapestries were
produced in large number, only a few survive.13 The nest and most repre-
sentative surviving minneteppich is known as Les Jeux; it is now in Nurem-
berg and dates to the last quarter of the fourteenth century (Figure 1).14
Another minneteppich with striking similarities to the Alhambra ceilings,
also in Nuremberg, displays a woodland scene of couples feasting near a
fountain (Figure 2). Similarities with the ceiling paintings include not only
the prevalence of scenes from chivalric romance, but also formal qualities.
Noticeable in both the minneteppichs and the Alhambra ceilings is a dark
ground against which the foliage, fruits and owers of trees have been care-
fully arranged, creating a two-dimensional, regular pattern of bright small
secular tapestries can be found in, for example, J. Guirey, Inventaire des tapisseries du roi
Charles VI vendues par les Anglais en 1422, Bib. Ecole Chartes xlviii (1887): 414; 23;
M. Meiss, French Painting in the time of Jean de Berry; Vol. l: The late XIVth Century and the
Patronage of the Duke (London: 1967), 59.
12
From many examples, I selected these : chasse personnaiges cheval, personnai-
ges et une fontaine, ung jeu deschaiz et plusieurs personnages, sur champ noir. See
Guirey, Inventaire des tapisseries du roi Charles VI vendues par les Anglais en 1422,
414; 23. See also Andrew Martindale, Painting for PleasureSome Lost Fifteenth Cen-
tury Secular Decorations of Northern Italy, in The Vanishing Past; Studies of Medieval Art,
Liturgy and Metrology presented to Christopher Hohler, ed. Alan Borg and Andrew Martin-
dale, BAR International Series III (1981), 111-112.
13
Gaborit-Chopin, The Polychrome Decoration of Gothic Ivories, 56-58.
14
Fabienne Joubert, Amaury Lefebure, and Pascal-Franois Bertrand, Histoire de la
tapisserie: en Europe, du Moyen Age nos jours (Paris: Flammarion, 1995), 49.
[196] 348
A. Luyster / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 341-367
Figure 1. Jeux Champtres, c. 1385. Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum. Photograph courtesy of the Germa-
nisches Nationalmuseum.
A. Luyster / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 341-367
Figure 2. Tapestry with woodland scene. Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum. Photograph courtesy of the
Germanisches Nationalmuseum.
349 [197]
shapes against a somber background. In the Alhambra ceilings, tree-trunks

also rise regularly and rhythmically behind the gures, dividing the space
(Illustrations 6 and 13). This same rhythm of tree-trunks, capped by small
clusters of carefully-rendered leaves, is matched in the tapestry in Figure 2.
The two tapestries and the ceiling paintings also share a shallow spatial
arrangement composed of a grassy foreground, above which is a bright row
of gures, while trees rise in the background. Spatial depth is absent except
for that suggested by the dark background, which could also be read as the
darkness of empty space. The arrangement of gures in each case, moreo-
ver, is primarily horizontal, focusing the viewers attention on a frieze of
gures placed in a minimal but heavily decorated foreground (grass and
owers) and background (trees). The general eect in all three cases is cre-
ated by the use of red and tawny colors against a cool dark blue and green
background, against which relatively large gures interact in small groups
in a courtly manner.
In addition to these similarities in color, visual texture, and treatment of
pictorial space, the iconography of certain motifs in specic minneteppichs
and the Alhambra ceilings are nearly identical. Populating the shallow
middle ground in Illustrations 6 and 13 and Figure 1 are rambling castles
with crenellated curtain walls, tall towers pierced by multiple windows,
many balconies, and gateways notably open and inviting, rather than
closed and defensive. The pointed shoes, bare heads and o-the-shoulder
dresses of the women, and the well-dened trim around their necklines
and down the center of their loose-tting dresses, can be found in both
tapestries and the Hall of Justice paintings. The beasts ambling at the very
base of Les Jeux among the short, sharp, parallel lines of grass are also
reminiscent of the paintings. Substantive elements of costume, foliage, and
architectural detail in these tapestries, then, are found in both the Alham-
bra paintings and in the minneteppichs. In conclusion, the strength of ivo-
ries as source material for the ceilings, which is primarily iconographical,
can be matched by tapestries, and tapestries additionally exhibit similari-
ties to the Hall of Justice ceilings in their use of color, visual texture, picto-
rial elements and composition, scale, and viewing experience.
Figural Tapestries and Cultural Exchange in Spain and Europe

The parallels between the visual language of tapestries and that of the ceil-
ing paintings are too numerous to have come about entirely by chance.
Muhammad V15 might have been given such a tapestry as a gift, or his art-
ists, who had probably worked for the Castilian ruler,16 could have seen
them in Don Pedros Alczar or elsewhere. However the exchange hap-
pened (and it is quite possible that these circumstances may never be com-
pletely reconstructed), it is clear that Muhammad V and his well-travelled
artists had various opportunities to view such tapestries, as they were com-
monly hung outside windows at festivals and processions and were dis-
played publicly within wealthy residences in Spain. Documents not only
witness the viewing of Christian tapestries by Nasrids, but also the impor-
tation of Christian tapestries into Nasrid Spain and the explicit imitation
of Christian gural tapestries and other textiles by Nasrid artisans, as I
detail below.
The Nasrids would have had the opportunity to come into contact with
Christian tapestries at various events. In 1399, for example, Mara de Luna
and her husband, King Martn I of Aragn, ordered tapestries as well as
silk and gold draperies to be hung in the state rooms of the Aljafera in
Zaragoza in preparation for their separate coronations.17 Indeed, a gural
tapestry bearing the combined arms of Mara de Luna and Martn of
Aragn has been identied, underlining their interest in this medium.18
Tapestries were also given as international gifts: Philippe le Hardi, a prince
of the Valois dynasty of France, often gave gural tapestries in the context
of diplomatic exchange.19 Some of these tapestries, moreover, were given to
monarchs in Christian Spain. For instance, Philippe le Hardi gave a tapes-
try representing the History of the Miracles of Saint Anthony to Martn of
Aragn in 1398.20 Such a prized possession must have been displayed both
on state occasions and at important meetings: a few decades later, in a
15
The accepted patron of these images is Muhammad V; I will therefore continue to use
his name in this paper. Please note, however, the article by Ana Echevarria in this same
volume which suggests another possibility.
16
Dodds, The Paintings, 188, note 1, and 191, where she references the rst edition
of Pavn Maldonados volume: Pavn Maldonado, Arte toledano: islamico y mudejar, 252-
255. See also Basilio Pavn Maldonado, Arte toledano: islamico y mudejar, 2. aum. ed.
(Madrid: Instituto Hispano-Arabe de Cultura, 1988).
17
Florence Lewis May, Silk textiles of Spain, eighth to fteenth century, Hispanic notes &
monographs. Peninsular series (New York, NY: 1957), 166.
18
A. V. de P. and W. G. T., A Tapestry of Martin of Aragn and Maria De Luna, The
Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 7, no. 26 (1905), 141-143.
19
Joubert, Lefebure and Bertrand, Histoire de la tapisserie, 14.
20
Joubert, Lefebure and Bertrand, Histoire de la tapisserie, 14.
book of hours produced for Alfonso V of Aragn around 1450 (London,

British Library Add. MS. 28962, Fol. 14v), two men (a king and bishop?)
appear in front of a gural, northern-style tapestry depicting courtly gen-
tlemen and ladies at falconry (Figure 3).21 These examples demonstrate
that in the later fourteenth and early fteenth centuries, northern gural
tapestries were owned and displayed at courts in Spain and played a role in
international diplomacy, both as gifts and as backdrops for meetings.
Furthermore, historical data suggests that gural tapestries from Chris-
tian Europe (including Germany) were imported into Nasrid Spain and
into Granada.22 Importation of textiles from the north would not have
been as common in early medieval times, but in the later medieval era,
trade patterns in al-Andalus changed. Olivia R. Constable describes a shift
in Andalusian trade patterns from a primarily east-west axisthat is, from
al-Andalus to the Islamic lands to the eastto a north-south axis, con-
necting al-Andalus to northern Europe in the thirteenth century.23 Later
medieval trade in Granada was in fact controlled by merchants from Chris-
tian Europe, the Genoese.24 The movement of portable goods, including
textiles, is one of the most important mechanisms through which styles
and motifs cross cultural boundaries, and patterns of trade can reveal
much about how and why certain styles and motifs travelthus, the trad-
ing context was one in which such objects could easily have reached the
Nasrid court.25
Indeed, the Nasrid economy depended upon textile production and
trade, and this latter activity appears to have been largely concentrated in
a market the size of a small city just down the hill from the Alhambra, so
21
Joubert, Lefebure and Bertrand, Histoire de la tapisserie, 11. For contextual informa-
tion on fteenth-century Spain, see Mauro Natale, El Renacimiento mediterrneo: viajes de
artistas e itinerarios de obras entre Italia, Francia y Espaa en el siglo XV (Madrid: Fundacin
Coleccin Thyssen-Bornemisza, 2001).
22
See below.
23
Olivia Remie Constable, Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: the Commercial Realign-
ment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900-1500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 14.
24
Constable, Trade and Traders, 246.
25
Indeed, luxury textiles in a slightly earlier period (tenth-twelfth centuries) have been
noted as the prime mediators in cultural exchange between courts across the Mediterranean
due to their portability and high status. For more on portable goods, including textiles, as
mediators of cross-cultural exchange, see Eva Homan, Pathways of Portability: Islamic
and Christian interchange from the tenth through the twelfth century, Art History 24
(2001): 17-50.
Figure 3. Book of Hours of Alfonso V of Aragn. London, British Library

Add. MS. 28962, Fol. 14v. British Library Board. All rights reserved.
any visitor might well have walked past stalls stacked to the ceiling with
imported textiles before entering the palace.26 Not far away from that mar-
ket stood the Inn of the Genoese, where merchants stayed, and where
numerous German coats of arms were painted, among which was that of
Nuremberg.27 These German merchants could well have sold German tap-
estries, even minneteppichs, at the textile market which was the center of
trade for the entire region. That European tapestries were imported into
Nasrid Spain is documented at least at the late date of 1476, when customs
records show friezes (apparently textiles, perhaps woolen) crossing the
border from Castile to Granada.28
Moreover, at least one chronicle explicitly describes Nasrid knights from
Granada attending a festival where Christian tapestries were displayed: this
is the Carnival festival at Jan in 1463. Granted, this date is later than that
of the painted ceilings commission, but it is representative of the type of
event which occurred across borders throughout the later medieval period.
These festivities are described in the fteenth-century chronicle Hechos del
Condestable. After watching a burlesque variation of the game of tilting
at the ring, both Muslim and Christian guests are invited to dine nearby.29
26
On sericulture in Granada and the citys textile market, see James Dickie (Yaqub
Zaki), Granada: a Case Study of Arab Urbanism in Muslim Spain, in The Legacy of Mus-
lim Spain, ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992), 95-96. For further informa-
tion on the economics of Granada, see Carmen Trillo San Jos, Las actividades econmicas
y las estructuras sociales, in Historia del Reino de Granada, ed. Rafael Gerardo Peinado
Santaella, Manuel Barrios Aguilera, and Francisco Andjar Castillo (Granada: Universidad
de Granada, 2002), 323-330. On Granadas textile trade, see (among others) Olivia Remie
Constable, Muslim Merchants in Andalusi International Trade, in The Legacy of Muslim
Spain, ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Handbook of Oriental studies. The Near and Middle East
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992), 769.
27
Dickie (Yaqub Zaki), Granada: a Case Study, 94. Dickie cites Hieronymus Mnzer,
Viaje por Espana y Portugal (Granada: Tat, 1987), 60-61.
28
Jos Enrique Lpez de Coca Castaer, Institutions on the Castilian-Granadan Fron-
tier, 1369-1482, in Medieval Frontier Societies, ed. Angus MacKay and Robert Bartlett
(Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press and Oxford University Press, 1989), 142; Pedro
A. Porras Arboledas, El comercio fronterizo entre Andaluca y el reino de Granada a travs
de sus gravmenes scales, Baetica 7 (1984): 250.
29
Angus MacKay, Religion, Culture, and Ideology in Late Medieval Castilian-Grana-
dan Frontier Societies, in Medieval Frontier Societies, ed. Angus MacKay and Robert
Bartlett (Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press and Oxford University Press, 1989), 220;
Juan de Mata Carriazo, ed., Hechos del condestable don Miguel Lcas de Iranzo (crnica del
siglo XV), Coleccin de crnicas espaolas, 3 (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, s. a., 1940), 109-112.
In the original, the passage reads: . . . el dicho seor Condestable mand facer en la plaa
The host, the Condestable, sets out dinner in the square in front of
his lodging, where he has spread many very luxurious carpets and tapes-
tries. The space is littered with lanterns and at the back hangs a brocade
backdrop. The tapestries are specically noted as paos franeses bien
ricos (very elaborate French panels). The designation French may be an
accurate geographic descriptor or instead may be purely stylistic (of north-
ern style). We can imagine the Nasrid guests viewing such French tapes-
tries while dining and conversing. Perhaps the tapestries even served as a
focus for conversation between strangers. The walls and oors served to
display a collection of many types of luxury textiles, some of which were
associated with distant locations, a visual extravaganza which was appar-
ently intended to impress both visitors and local dignitaries. It is just such
a setting that we can imagine for the Hall of Justice ceilings, although in a
palace rather than a town square: a space strewn with textiles of various
origins, intended to impress both those from nearby and from faraway
lands.
Firm evidence that these northern tapestries were admired by the
inhabitants of al-Andalus is found in Muslim imitations of Christian
textiles. For instance, a tapestry of Hispano-Arabic manufacture (later used
as a pillow-cover, see Figure 4) is closely related to a German fragment
(also woven c. 1300) in both composition and ornament (Figure 5).30
In both cases, large squares set on the diagonal are inhabited by either
an animal or a geometric or vegetal design. The grotesque beasts in both
examples are also strikingly similar, with contorted bodies, highly curved
necks, large-toed feet, and tails, and the bodies in both cases have been
delante de su posada una muy grand foguera de lea seca, y mand alinpiar la calle que est
a las espaldas, do suele correr la sortija, y aderealla muy bien de muchas alhonbras e paos
franeses bien ricos, y un dosel de brocado a las espaldas, do ave de enar, y muy muchas
antorchas e faraones por toda la calle y la plaa.
30
The Hispano-Arabic tapestry is reproduced and discussed in Dodds, Al-Andalus,
no. 96. Scholarship on the German fragment in the Burrell Collection, Glasgow and its
larger companion piece in the Augustinermuseum in Freiburg includes Jutta Eiengarthen,
Mittelalterliche Textilien aus Kloster Adelhausen im Augustinermuseum Freiburg (Freiburg:
Adelhausenstiftung Frieburg im Breisgau, 1985), 31-49; Sebastian Bock and Lothar A.
Bhler, eds., Bestandskataloge der weltlichen Ortsstiftungen der Stadt Freiburg i. Br., Band V,
Die Textilien (Freiburg: Adelhausenstiftung Freiburg im Breisgau Allgemeine Stiftungsver-
waltung, 2001), no. 8. In these latter sources the Hispano-Arabic textile is also mentioned.
My thanks to Dr. Margret Ribbert of the Historisches Museum Basel for kindly providing
these references on the German pieces.
Figure 4. Pillow cover of Alfonso de la Cerda. Hispano-Arabic manufac-

ture, Nasrid period, c. 1271-1333. Patrimonio Nacional. Museo de Telas
Medievales, Monasterio de Santa Mara la Real de Huelgas, Burgos, Spain.
shaped to occupy the diamond shape delineated for them by the compo-
sition. The palette of jewel tones is also similar. This Hispano-Arabic tex-
tile, closely related to Christian gural tapestries, provides a strong
precedent for the Alhambra ceilings. In both cases, it appears, northern
gural tapestries serve as the source material which Muslim craftsmen
selectively imitate.
Later Nasrid fabrics also referenced Christian patterns. For instance, a
fteenth-century Nasrid textile bears close connections to coeval Italian
Figure 5. Tapestry fragment with birds and monsters. Germany, c. 1300.

The Burrell Collection, Glasgow, 46.1. Culture and Sport Glasgow.
velvets. The movement of its laterally inclined pomegranates and curling

stems are distinctly similar to those of Italian models.31 Furthermore,
many weavers in Spain, generally considered to be Mudjars or Muslims
living under Christian rule, had been working with gural motifs derived
31
This lampas also includes the Nasrid coat of arms and a lion. The following sources
attribute its manufacture to the Nasrid kingdom: Dodds, Al-Andalus, no. 100; May, Silk
Textiles of Spain, 182-185; Henri comte d Hennezel, Pour comprendre les tissus dart (Paris:
Hatchette, 1930), 122-123.
from Christian sources for centuries, creating heraldic and other gural
pieces for the market in Christian Spain.32 Interest in European textiles,
then, of various types but especially gural tapestries, is apparent in the
Nasrid artistic environment.
Textiles from Foreign Lands: Questions of Origin, Acquisition

and Display
What remains today of the Alhambra is but the empty shell of its former
regal appearance, and the experience of the fourteenth-century visitor
would have been one substantially aected by curtains, wall-hangings,
drapes, carpets, and mats, which were manufactured in many locations.
Viewers would have been attuned to their sophistication, cost, and wide-
ranging origins.33 Furthermore, these textiles functioned as extensions and
adornments of the architectural surroundings, contributing fundamentally
to the experience of the palaces spaces. Material evidence for the use of
textiles in the Alhambra can be found in the close parallels between textile
patterns and the stucco patterns in the interior; the blank walls in some of
the upper chambers of the Alhambra, where stucco decoration is only
32
Late medieval textile patterns exhibit uid exchange between Spain, Italy, the Near
East and China. For instance, see Anne E. Wardwell, The Stylistic Development of the
14th-and 15th-century Italian Silk Design, Aachener Kunstbltter 47 (1976): 177-226;
Anne E. Wardwell, Flight of the Phoenix: Crosscurrents in Late Thirteenth- to Four-
teenth-century Silk Patterns and Motifs, Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 74 (1987):
2-35. For my purposes, however, I focus only on the use of forms derived from Christian
Spain and other northern European countries by Muslim craftsmen in Spain. From the
second half of the thirteenth century, Muslim weavers under Christian rule combined ele-
ments derived from dierent cultural contexts. For instance, Mudjar craftsmen in Chris-
tian Murcia and elsewhere manufactured carpets including wild men, bears, and boars in a
forested landscape: Maurice Sven Dimand and Jean Mailey, Oriental rugs in the Metropoli-
tan Museum of Art (New York: distributed by the New York Graphic Society, 1973), 253-
260, esp. 54; Dodds, Al-Andalus, no. 101.
33
In Lisa Golombeks words, even when buildings have remained intact and are elabo-
rately decorated, such as the Alhambra, something seems to be missing. Lisa Golombek,
The Draped Universe of Islam, in Content and Context of Visual Arts in the Islamic World:
Papers from a Colloquium in Memory of Richard Ettinghausen, ed. Priscilla P. Soucek (Uni-
versity Park and London: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988), 25. Golombeks
article has been criticized by some for its blurred distinctions between dierent temporal
and cultural groups in the Islamic world, but her evidence is sound.
present around doors and windows, also testify to the use of hanging fab-
rics.34 Surviving texts conrm that textiles would have been abundantly
present. The fourteenth-century author Ibn al-Khatb describes the many
wall-hangings and oor coverings on display in the palace, including pre-
cious carpets and ne curtains.35 Additionally, one inscription on the walls
of the palace notes not only the presence of textiles in the Alhambra but
calls attention to the far-ung origins of specic textiles. This poem by the
fourteenth-century Granadan poet Ibn Zamrak, inscribed onto the walls
of the so-called Hall of the Two Sisters (the northernmost of the two
square, domed chambers in the Palace of the Lions), translates as follows:
With how many a decoration have you clothed it [the building] in order
to embellish it, one consisting of multicolored work causes the brocades of
Yemen to be forgotten!36 Textile collections, including examples derived
from faraway places and curiosities such as textiles with gural images,
were frequently displayed in other Islamic cities and palaces in order to
impress visitors.37 Indeed, we have seen that the same was true in Spanish
34
Although not extensive, the evidence for textiles in the Alhambra is relatively secure.
Cristina Partearroyo observed that curtains certainly hung on the walls of the Alhambra,
particularly in the upper rooms, where stucco decoration is only present around doors and
windows. Cristina Partearroyo, Spanish-Muslim Textile, Bulletin de Liason du Centre
international dtude des textiles anciens 45 (1977): 78-81. Others agree that curtains cer-
tainly hung on the walls of the palace, and the Alhambras stucco decoration contains sev-
eral motifs which are identical to those found in Nasrid textiles: Dodds, Al-Andalus 99.
Two elaborate, nearly-complete curtains survive, one in Cleveland and one in New York
(where a portion of a third is also housed), thought to have been woven in Spain in the
fteenth century. See Anne Wardwell, A Fifteenth-Century Silk Curtain from Muslim
Spain, The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 70, no. 2 (1983), 58-72. More gener-
ally, Golombek collects evidence from medieval texts and representations in illustrated
manuscripts which describe the regular and abundant use of textiles in Islamic interior
spaces and particularly in palaces; see Golombek, The Draped Universe of Islam, 26 .
35
Todo el suelo de la Alta Cpola estaba cubierto por tapices preciosos, sobre los cuales
se elevaba el trono real, con revestimientos de gala, en cuya blancura parecan impresos
los signos de la majestad y de la singularidad. El suelo [de las otras dependencias] del
Mexuar, todo l, estaba tapado por limpias esteras y almohadones de cuero. De sus paredes
pendan velos nos y bellsimos. Note that Garca Gomez interprets the nuevo Mexuar
as the Sala de Dos Hermanas. See Emilio Garca Gmez, Foco de antigua luz sobre la Alham-
bra: desde un texto de Ibn al-Jatib en 1362 (Madrid: Instituto Egipcio de Estudios Islmicos
en Madrid, 1988), 148.
36
Oleg Grabar, The Alhambra (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978;
reprint, 1992), 145.
37
Golombek, The Draped Universe of Islam, 31.
Christian kingdoms and even, on a smaller scale, at Jan. The gural, tapestry-
like ceiling paintings in the Hall of Justice, then, might function as merely
one more striking example within a collection of textiles whose various
origins signaled the wide-ranging connections of the Alhambras ruler.
The ceiling paintings were set amidst textiles, and they formally resem-
ble tapestries. As such, they function visually as a part of a textile collec-
tion, and I will argue below that the aesthetics brought to bear by
contemporary viewers upon textile collections in Nasrid Spain should also
provide the context for a reconsideration of the Nasrid interpretation of
the Hall of Justice ceilings. I am not the rst to propose such a parallel
between wall- or ceiling-decoration and textile display in palaces: the xed
decoration of at least one other palace chamber, also in a hybrid Christian-
Islamic Mediterranean environment, has also been convincingly connected
to textile patterns and has been explored in terms of the impact and aes-
thetics of textiles in that environment.38 This is the so-called Norman
stanza in the Joharia section of the Norman palace of Palermo, probably a
reception room, adorned with a twelfth-century mosaic program on the
vault and upper portions of its walls. The motifs present in that mosaic
were well-known in luxury textiles and have been similarly interpreted as
suggesting royal power and cosmic glorication.39 This parallel example
heightens the possibility that the aesthetic perceptions generally applied to
textile display in the Alhambra could also have been applied, at least by
some viewers, to the Hall of Justice ceilings.
The multiple ways in which tapestries and textiles were deployed around
the fourteenth-century Mediterranean transcended the conventional
notions of political and artistic domination and submission that character-
ize much of previous scholarship on the painted ceilings. Textiles played a
role in international trade as cross-cultural symbols of wealth and status,
and therein as objects (and as objects quite frequently lavishly adorned
with gural programs) whichdespite or even because of their known
origin in a foreign landcould be bought, manipulated, and displayed
for various purposes. As is apparent from medieval trading evidence, ne
textiles were negotiable as wealth anywhere in the world. They could be
transmitted as part of ones inheritance, to be converted into cash in case
of need.40 When the foreign origins of textiles remained well-known to the
38
Homan, Pathways of Portability, 33-38.
39
Homan, Pathways of Portability, 33, 36.
40
S. D. Goitein and E. Gustave, A Mediterranean society; the Jewish communities of the
buyer, they served as markers of their economic and social value. However,
after the textiles were bought, their new owner also took possession of the
prestige-value inherent in the material work. Such textiles were derived
from elsewhere, but their quality of otherness was not understood as a
subversive statement against their new owner. Rather these objects attested
to their owner or patrons exquisite taste or cultured worldliness. Such
might well have been the case for the painted ceilings in the Hall of Justice:
their otherness, if recognized as foreign, would only have contributed to
a viewers positive impression of the rulers role in international aairs, and
if unrecognized, would have been interpreted as simply one more colorful
and high-quality surface, adding to the general sense of luxury and wealth
created by the textiles hung and spread throughout the Alhambra.
Examples of the transfer of textiles across national boundaries suggest
that valuation of the textiles from another land could exist alongside polit-
ical enmity. For instance, certain French tapestries in England, despite the
Hundred Years War, were highly regarded and sought-after.41 I am not
aware of other substantial scholarly work documenting the presence or
perception of Christian textiles in Islamic Spain, but a signicant body of
work examines the use and perception of Islamic textiles in Christian
Spain, and I refer to this scholarship for comparative purposes. In Spain,
Islamic textiles which had been bought or seized were highly valued
in Christian households and in churches. Textiles of Islamic appearance
and/or manufacture were used as funerary shrouds for bishops and were
represented in paintings of Christian gures.42 However, despite such
admiration, the degree to which such textiles were recognized as foreign or
Islamic has been debated, particularly in the case of Andalusian textiles in
thirteenth-century Castile.43 It remains to be explored whether the Alham-
bra ceilings, recognizably foreign and Christian to a modern audience,
would have been read as such in the late fourteenth century.
Arab world as portrayed in the documents of the Cairo Geniza (Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press, 1967), 101.
41
William George Thomson, Tapestry weaving in England: from the earliest times to the
end of the XVIIIth century (London: Batsford; New York, NY: Scribner, 1914), especially
pp. 9-14. In 1337, King Edward III even had a letter written to the Mayor of Sandwich,
complaining that the Mayor was holding some seized tapestries from Arras which the King
had particularly wanted: Thomson, Tapestry weaving, 12.
42
May, Silk Textiles of Spain , passim. See also Feliciano, Muslim Shrouds for Christian
Kings, passim.
43
Feliciano, Muslim Shrouds for Christian Kings, passim.
Muhammad V, an ally of Don Pedro of Castile for many years, might

well have recognized that the style of the paintings in the Hall of Justice
had some connection with tapestries displayed in northern kingdoms.
Connections between the paintings and the north might have been even
more obvious if it is true that, as been suggested, the painters responsible
for the ceiling bays had come from Castile.44 The display of these paintings
would nonetheless have been recognized by all, including Muhammad V,
as contributing to his greater glory. The question remaining, however, is
the degree to which Muhammad Vs commission of these paintingsand
one does not want to discount the probable role of a designer, albeit one
directed by a patronwas based consciously on the fact that these images
were derived from a Christian source. In other words, was the choice of
such images made in order to attract a specic kind of attention from a
specic audience, whether Nasrid, Castilian or foreign, or was the choice
simply made based on color and/or theme? To what degree was Nasrid
appreciation of textiles associated with knowledge of their origins? As Feli-
ciano argues with reference to Castile, cultural ambiguity was neither the
goal nor the motivation and, consequently, [is] not an accurate rationaliza-
tion of the adoption of Andalusi neries in thirteenth-century Castilian
sumptuary displays.45 The selection of Andalusi textiles to make clothing
in thirteenth-century Castile was based on the richness of the materials
and decoration and a well-established taste for Andalusi luxury goods,
rather than any ethnic or religious association by Castilian consumers.46
If a similar pattern of behavior was present in Nasrid Granada, then the
rich colors and ne execution of the Hall of Justice paintings, evidence
of their costliness and rarity, would have been intended primarily to
impress audiences.47
The Castilians, then, did not focus on the origins of their Andalusi tex-
tiles. Yet that does not necessarily imply that the Nasrids were similarly
uninterested in the origins of the artworks which they owned and dis-
44
This possibility, based on formal similarities between the Hall of Justice ceilings and
other paintings executed under Don Pedro, was raised by Pavn Maldonado and has been
echoed by Dodds and others. See Dodds, The Paintings, 191 and note 11, in which she
cites Pavn Maldonado, Arte toledano: islamico y mudejar , 252-255.
45
Feliciano, Muslim Shrouds for Christian Kings, 131.
46
Feliciano, Muslim Shrouds for Christian Kings, 118.
47
See analysis of Felicianos argument in Robinson, Medieval Andalusian Courtly Cul-
ture, 159.
played. Later Muslim rulers were known to have adopted foreign symbols
of rulershipa well-known example of which is found in Sleyman the
Magnicents crownquite consciously because of their presumed recog-
nition as foreign. Glru Necipoglu has interpreted this crown as a symbol
meant primarily not for Ottoman subjects but for those beyond the
boundaries of Ottoman rule, specically Europeans, who might be less
certain of the rulers authority.48 Muhammad Vs paintings were perhaps
also intended for an additional audience, one composed of Castilians or
other Christian Europeans, for whom, like Sleymans crown, a northern
language of power would have particular import.
Certain Nasrids, toothose who were more attuned to aesthetics and
who had seen Christian works elsewheremight also have been expected
to recognize these paintings as related to textiles from elsewhere. This is
plausible for two reasons. First, the awareness of foreign origins of textiles
elsewhere in the Alhambra, particularly the inscription regarding textiles
from Yemen (cited in full above),49 suggests that recognition of the foreign
origins of the material would have been part of the experience of admira-
tion for at least some observers. Second, certain textiles in Spain were
woven with (false) inscriptions suggesting that they had been manufac-
tured in famed centers of production in the Middle East; this, too, indi-
cates that the craftsmanship and materials of a piece as well as its foreign
(exotic?) origin might inspire the admiration of a viewer. At least two such
fragmentary textiles remain, one in Len and one in Boston (Figure 6),
and the inscriptions on both claim (falsely) that they were made in Bagh-
dad.50 Although both Spanish textiles have been dated earlier than the
48
Glru Necipoglu, Sleyman the Magnicent and the representation of power in the
context of Ottoman-Hapsburg-papal rivalry, Art Bulletin 71 (1989): 401-427.
49
This is the poem by the fourteenth-century Granadan poet Ibn Zamrak inscribed
onto the walls of the so-called Hall of the Two Sisters: With how many a decoration
have you clothed it [the building] in order to embellish it, one consisting of multicolored
work causes the brocades of Yemen to be forgotten! See Grabar, The Alhambra, 145.
50
For further discussion, see F. E. Day, The Inscription of the Boston Baghdad
SilkA Note on Method in Epigraphy, Ars Orientalis 1 (1954): 191-194; May, Silk Tex-
tiles of Spain, 24-27; Dodds, Al-Andalus, 105-106; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New
York, NY), The Art of Medieval Spain, A.D. 500-1200 (New York, NY: Metropolitan
Museum of Art: Distributed by H.N. Abrams, 1993), 108-109; Richard Ettinghausen,
Oleg Grabar, and Marilyn Jenkins-Madina, Islamic Art and Architecture 650-1250, Pelican
History of Art (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 243, 80-81; Sheila S. Blair
and Jonathan M. Bloom, From Secular to Sacred: Islamic Art in Christian Contexts, in
Secular sacred: 11th-16th century works from the Boston Public Library and the Museum of
Figure 6. Shroud of San Pedro de Osma. Almohad Spain, c. 1100. Museum

of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, 33.371. 2008 Museum of Fine Arts, Bos-
ton, MA.
fourteenth century, it is likely that the existence of such textiles in collec-

tions and on display would encourage owners and viewers to consider
place of origin when viewing works of art, especially textiles (or the textile-
like Hall of Justice ceilings). Although the number of Spanish textiles with
such inscriptions is limited, Ettinghausen notes, in reference to twelfth-
century and seventeenth-century authors who state that attabi fabrics
(named after the Attabiyya quarter of Baghdad) were made at Almera in
Spain, that there are many other such references to the copying of textile
patterns in distant parts of the medieval Muslim world.51 Those who cop-
Fine Arts, Boston, ed. Nancy Netzer (Chestnut Hill, MA: McMullen Museum of Art Boston
College, 2006), 117-118.
51
The statements are made by the twelfth-century Arab geographer al-Idrisi and the
ied textile patterns from Baghdad, Gurgan, or Isfahan might have done so
with more or less conscious attention to their place of origin,52 but the
presence of the woven inscriptions, which must have been read at least on
occasion, in conjunction with the statements of authors which suggest that
they know that a certain type of fabric was derived from elsewhere, lead to
a specic conclusion. Granted, these inscriptions suggest attention to the
origins of textiles from the Muslim east rather than from the Christian
north, but together with the survival of textiles made in Islamic Spain
which reference Christian patterns, it is at least plausible to imagine that
attention was paid to the origins of all luxury textiles, not merely those
deriving from the east.
It is possible, then, that aesthetic interests unlike those of Castile might
be at play here. Nasrid interestat least theoreticalin the origins of the
luxury objects in their possession is evident both in the Alhambras inscrip-
tion regarding Yemeni textiles (multicolored work that causes the bro-
cades of Yemen to be forgotten!)53 and in the inscriptions woven into
Andalusi textiles, both of which specically direct attention to a textiles
place of origin as part of its value. This aesthetic awareness of origins, then,
could well have been applied to the tapestry-like ceilings in the Hall of
Justice, displayed alongside so many other textiles in the Alhambra.
Not all viewers would have had the experience and desire to pay such
close attention to textiles and their origins, and they, lacking sucient
background, might have remained unaware of the stylistic origin of the
seventeenth-century Maghribi author al-Maqqari. See Ettinghausen, Grabar, and Jenkins-

Madina, Islamic Art and Architecture 650-1250, 243. On attabi fabrics see also note 52
below. Inscriptions naming the place of manufacture do not seem to have been included
in all places and time periods: Wardwells analysis of selected thirteenth- and fourteenth-
century textiles from eastern Islamic lands does not include any textile naming a place of
manufacture; see Anne E. Wardwell, Panni tartarici: Eastern Islamic Silks Woven with
Gold and Silver (13th and 14th Centuries), Islamic Art 3 (1988-1989), 95-173.
52
Ettinghausen, Grabar, and Jenkins-Madina, Islamic Art and Architecture 650-1250,
281. On attabi fabrics, see R. B. Serjeant, Materials for a History of Islamic Textiles up to
the Mongol Conquest, Ars Islamica 9 (1942), 82. On imitations, see R. B. Serjeant,
Materials for a History of Islamic Textiles up to the Mongol Conquest, Ars Islamica 10
(1943), 99; R. B. Serjeant, Materials for a History of Islamic Textiles up to the Mongol
Conquest, Ars Islamica 11-12 (1946), 107-108, 16, 38; R. B. Serjeant, Materials for a
History of Islamic Textiles up to the Mongol Conquest, Ars Islamica 15-16 (1951), 33.
Serjeants work has also been republished in R. B. Serjeant, Islamic textiles: material for a
history up to the Mongol conquest (Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1972).
53
See note 49.
Hall of Justice ceiling paintings. Pure materialism, including an apprecia-

tion of craftsmanship, skill, and ne colors, would have served as the basis
for their admiration of these ceiling paintings, and such qualities would
have been interpreted as expressions of the majesty of Muhammad V. Yet
based on the selection of evidence presented here, more educated viewers
might have also been accustomed to consider the source of the ceilings
impressive display. For those viewers, the Alhambras display of textiles
from many places around the world, conjoined with the ceiling paintings,
presented Muhammad V as a king with international experience and an
important place within the wider political and geographical world. This
conceit is closely echoed in another of the Alhambras inscriptions, this
time by an anonymous poet, in the corridor outside the Hall of the Ambas-
sadors in the slightly earlier and adjoining Palace of Comares, which urges
the ruler to terrify both Christians and Arabs.54 This broad and presum-
ably international audience, then, is one consciously constructed by the
poet, and one which might have been present in the minds of other con-
temporaneous Nasrids.
Muhammad Vs political success was due to his success both in diplo-
matic negotiation and in warfare, and his realm experienced long years of
peace and prosperity.55 The use of foreign materials could only have con-
tributed, not only materially to the presentation of Muhammad V as a
grand and wealthy ruler, but also, in the minds of some viewers at least, to
his presentation as a sophisticated and experienced ruler with unmatched
success in the broader world, a success which, of course, led to a greater
and better Granada.
The adoption of Islamic textiles in the Christian west has long been
recognized. The reverse situation, that is, Nasrid response to northern
European textiles, presented above should be viewed as part of the larger
and longer Andalusi tradition of interest in imported and foreign textiles.
It opens, however, a new chapter in this tradition. While Andalusi atten-
tion to textiles from the east, documented in the form of inscriptions, can
54
Inscription attributed to the time of Ysuf I, the father of Muhammad I. See Emilio
Garca Gmez, Poemas rabes en los muros y fuentes de la Alhambra (Madrid: E. Garca
Gmez, 1985), 102.
55
See, among others, Rachel Ari, LEspagne musulmane au temps des Nasrides (1232-
1492) (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1973); Rachel Ari, El Reino nasri de Granada (Madrid: 1992);
Rafael Gerardo Peinado Santaella, ed., Historia del Reino de Granada, vol. 1 (Granada:
Universidad de Granada, 2000).
be witnessed at least from the early twelfth century, attention to textiles

from the north can only be documented from the time of the Hispano-
Arabic tapestry fragment woven c. 1300. This specic example of interest
in European production is then succeeded chronologically in the mid-to-
late fourteenth century by the Alhambra ceilings, and in the fteenth cen-
tury by the festival at Jan, the textile friezes imported into Granada, and
the Nasrid velvet which draws from an Italian source. Such a pattern of
evidence ts with Constables ndings regarding the reorganization of
Nasrid trade patterns, which shift in the thirteenth century from eastward
to northward, from the Islamic world to the European world. The Alham-
bra ceilings, then, not only bear witness to their patrons grand designs,
literally materialized in the display of textiles and textile-like paintings in
his palace, but also raise the possibility of a broader Nasrid interest in the
textile production of the European north.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank all those who have contributed to the develop-
ment of this piece, including Glru Necipoglu, Simone Pinet, Cynthia Rob-
inson, David Roxburgh, Alicia Walker and the other contributors to this
issue. Any remaining errors of fact or interpretation are of course my own.
Medieval
Encounters
Walk on the Wild Side
Simone Pinet
Department of Romance Studies, Cornell University,
313 Morrill Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
Abstract
The gure of the wild man is one that crosses artistic disciplines and genres in the cultures of
medieval Iberia. In this article I show how the wild man operates within a variety of meanings
in diverse literary contexts that, working simultaneously at dierent narrative levels, cross
over from literature into daily life and spectacles, from legal to political discourses. The gures
continued presence from the medieval period into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
suggests its use as a commonplace, as a motif with a number of xed meanings that are put
to work through context, providing the possibility of dierent, perhaps even contradictory
readings. As commonplace, then, the wild man is presented as a case study for the reconsid-
eration of other elements in the paintings of the Hall of Justice of the Alhambra, often inter-
preted to have a specic or xed meaning, and thus programmed within a particular narrative.
Seen in its entirety as a repository of commonplaces, I interpret the complex of the lateral
paintings of the Hall of Justice in relation to the central one, in which a set of ten kings in
Nasrid dress are depicted as conversing, as pretexts for narration that can be of a literary or
juridical nature. I then go on to provide a possible itinerary of reading for the wild man scene
not only in its immediate context, but as part of he overall visual project in a political key that
illustrates the productive makeup of the paintings as pedagogical and ideological enterprise.
Keywords
Alhambra, wild man, commonplaces, levels of meaning, sentimental ction, eloquence,
narrative sequences
A truchn o albardn
o cavallero salvaje
bien le dan de lo que han
mas ninguno de parage
non trabage, que sin gage
nunca esta le farn;
por linage nin omenage
my poco dl arn.
Alfonso de Villasandino
qui ride muyto es blasmado e qui nunca se ride es salvage e cruel
Libro del Tesoro
S. Pinet / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 368-389 369 [217]
In the northernmost vault in the hall adjacent to the Patio de los Leones, a
wild man turns his gaze upon his attacker. His body faces a lady, but his
head is completely turned back, and the expression in his eyes mixes sur-
prise and terror as he takes in the knight on horseback, bearing a shield
with three white doves in a red eld, who spears him in the chest. The wild
mans white hair ies about his head, and a long beard ows down over his
back, as his head is turned around. The rest of his body is covered in equally
white hair, and is simply adorned by a belt around his waist that holds a
cloth covering his legs. He wears no shoes on the feet that are depicted as
moving towards the lady on the other side, whose wrists/forearms the wild
man holds in both his hands. The lady, calmly submitting to his grasp,
nods her head slightly in his direction, and neither her attitude nor her
eyes betray fear or resistance, even if her right hand seems to point upwards,
perhaps calling for help, or warning of punishment to come. She in turn
holds in her left hand the chain that commands a lion, also not afraid of
the wild man, nor defending its lady, but indierently or perhaps impru-
dently sleeping at her feet. Behind the lion, a castle transitions to another
scene in which the same lady applauds from her tower the spectacle below
her in which a Muslim on horseback spears a Christian in the chest, caus-
ing him to drop his lance and fall from his horse (detail in Illustration 4)
By the seventeenth century, two and a half centuries after these ceilings
were painted, wild men were especially associated with the visual arts.
Sebastin de Covarrubias Orozco denes salvaje in his dictionary as every-
thing pertaining to the mountain, in a translation of the selva or forest
to the mountain, and immediately proceeds to talk about painting:
los pintores, que tienen licencia potica, pintan unos hombres todos cubiertos de vello
de pies a cabeza, con cabellos largos y barba larga. stos llamaron los escritores de
libros de caballeras salvajes. Ya podra acontecer algunos hombres haberse criado en
algunas partes remotas, como en islas desiertas, habiendo aportado all por fortuna y
gastado su ropa, andar desnudos, cubrindolos la mesma naturaleza con vellos, para
algn remedio suyo. Dstos han topado muchos los que han navegado por mares
remotos. 2. Llamamos salvaje al villano que sabe poco de cortesa. 3. Salvajina, la carne
del monte, como jabal, venado, etc. Djose salvaje de selva, a nomine latine SILVA.1
(painters, who have poetic license, paint men all covered in bodily hair
from head to toe, with long manes and a long beard. Writers of books of
1
Sebastin de Covarrubias Orozco, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o espaola, Felipe C.R.
Maldonado, ed. (Madrid: Editorial Castalia, 1994), p. 880, s. v. Salvaje.
[218] 370 S. Pinet / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 368-389
chivalry called these savages. It might occur that some men were brought
up in remote parts, as upon desert islands, being brought there by fortune
and their clothes having worn down, to be naked, Nature itself covering
them with bodily hair, for their remedy. Of these those who have sailed
remote seas have found many. 2. We call savage the villager who knows
little courtesy. 3. Salvajina, the meat of the mountain, boar, deer, etc. Sav-
age comes from forest, a nomine latine, SILVA).
Here, Covarrubias derives the salvaje or literary wild man from its painted
representation by claiming that books of chivalry have given a name to a
gure already existing in the visual arts. He also provides an explanation for
the wild mans ambiguous appearance as both human and beast that relies on
its being raised in isolation from society, and gives a climatological or bio-
logical explanation equating wild men with shipwrecked men who, having
in time lost their clothes, would have grown hair to protect themselves.
Covarrubias further asserts the historical reality of these wild men. In the
second entry, the opposition between courtliness and wildness is made syn-
onymous with the opposition between corte and aldea: the wildman is the
villano or village man who knows but little courtesy. The third and last
meaning Covarrubias gives explains the restriction of the meaning to the
motif of the hunt, related to the wild man, as we shall see, for both folkloric
and high culture reasons, to specally the meat of hunted animals, such as
boar and deer. The denition thus showcases a semantic change from the
space of wilderness (understood as the forest or silva, with parallels in the
locus agrestis or the space beyond or outside the law), to that of isolation (also
interesting in the historic overlaps between isolation and discovery), to the
territories of property, or royal rights over hunting grounds. While in this
denition spatial characterization primes, I want to retain from this detour
the emphasis on social representation that determines the denition, that is,
how the term salvaje relates to the social in dierent and nuanced ways, to
recover after that notion of the social the space that is being represented.2
Still a century and a half later, the 1737 Diccionario de autoridades gives
the diverse signications collected by Covarrubias an alternate hierarchy,
reecting the semantic specializations of the term: salvaje as sylvestre or
without cultivation appears rst; then, a second metaphorical use to denote
2
See Jerrylin Doddss article in this same issue. This possible meaning of salvaje that I
present here, among many others, reinforces Dodds interpretation of the paintings. The
insistence on making the wild man a representation of a scene in a Lancelot romance,
however, impedes the exibility of the scene.
contempt, with further connotations of extremely stubborn, stupid, or

dumb; nally, a third signicative register in which salvaje denotes a man
who has lived or has been raised in the wild among animals, whether naked
or dressed in skins, of horrifying appearance, covered in long and unruly
hair, relating this denition to those gures represented in architecture and
painting. Salvagina receives its own separate entry.3 Here the term culture
has been substituted for that of courtesy, and savageness is understood as
stupidity. The visible attributes of the wild man, however, remain intact,
even when all possibility of a positive interpretation has been excluded.
Especially, what these denitions convey is a mutability of the denition of
the wild man, a sort of historical adaptability dened by context, con-
trasted by xed, recognizable visual traits that make the gure of the wild
man readily available for the construction of meaning. These denitions
refer to literature only secondarily, for the immediate representation of the
savage is that of the visual arts, whether in painting or in sculpture, or in
architectural ornament.4
Most of these meanings circulated in a general way through the concept
of the wild man in the Middle Ages. While by the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth centuries it is possible to distinguish some selective meanings and
traits assigned to the topos, in the medieval period the conation and con-
fusioneven to the point of contradictionof these meanings is frequent.
From its mythological and folkloric roots, to literary and pictorial elabora-
tions with elements from Classical materials that constitute a particular
3
Diccionario de autoridades (Madrid, Editorial Gredos, 1964), v. 3: 33-34, s. v. salvaje.
4
Jos Mara de Azcrate devoted several studies to the gure of the wild man in the arts
(for instance, El tema iconogrco del salvaje, in Archivo espaol de arte 31 (1948):
81-99), following Richard Bernheimers classic Wild Men in the Middle Ages: A Study in Art
Sentiment, and Demonology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952). Edward
Dudley and Maximilian Novak edited a collection that addresses the next period, The Wild
Man Within, An Image in Western Thought from the Renaissance to Romanticism (Pittsburgh,
PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1972). Devoted to Golden Age theater see Oleh Mazur,
The Wild Man in the Spanish Renaissance and Golden Age Theater: Brbaro and their Coun-
terparts in European Lores (Ph.D. Dissertation, Villanova University, Villanova); Jos A.
Madrigal, La funcin del hombre salvaje en el teatro de Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina y Calde-
rn de la Barca (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 1973); and
Fausta Antoniucci, El salvaje en la comedia del siglo de oro. Historia de un tema de Lope a
Caldern (Pamplona/Toulouse: RILCE (Universidad de Navarra)), LESO (Universit de
Toulouse), 1995, with ample bibliography (hereafter El salvaje en la comedia). See also John
D. Williams, The Savage in sixteenth Century Spanish Prose Fiction, in Kentucky Foreign
Language Quarterly, III: 40-46.
tradition, to the association with monstrous races and the barbaric, the
wild man carries with him symbolic weight that cannot be easily dissected
into one or another specic origin or nuance in any given example.
The wild mans omnipresence in the literatures and arts of the medieval
period, and well beyond, has been the inspiration of numerous studies of
varying depth, perspective and interest. While Richard Bernheimers clas-
sic Wild Men in the Middle Ages: A Study in Art, Sentiment, and Demonol-
ogy is the most cited, it should be noted that in it, Iberia is systematically
ignored. Taking his cue from Roger S. Loomis, who speculated on a specic
source from which the gure in the ceilings might derive, Bernheimer
refers to a single source which would elaborate on what all manifestations
of the wild man attempt to present, that is, a scene where a hairy wild
man, armed with a club, who after apprehending a lady ghts a knight
who defends her.5 While this is, in part, what we can see in the Alhambra,
some crucial elements are amissthe cluband there are new ones that
the Alhambra adds, which if considered, might prove more productive.
But beyond showing that there are other possibilities for interpretation, I
will try to present these as native, Iberian, or otherwise readily available
to the painter or the storyteller from within her or his immediate cultural
context(s).
When in the early twentieth century, Fannie M. Pollak wrote about the
Alhambras painted ceilings, the questions she thought most relevant were,
in this order, date of production; whether their subject was historical or
legendary in its basis or if these were merely fantastic creations of the
artists imagination (note the derisive take on the non-historical, as in
merely, and the single artist); the religion/ethnicity of the executor (Muslim
or Christian); and the nationality of the executor (Frenchman, Italian or
Spaniard, in that order of possibility). The rst hypotheses oered derive
the religion and nationality of the executor from the subject matter, mak-
ing the artist a Christian and a Spaniard of the fourteenth century.6 Already
in this brief three-paragraph note by Pollak, a recurrent critical perspective
was established. Notably, beyond the obsession with typologyzing art eth-
nicitiesin order to set apart, to categorize, to cleanly establish limits,
that is, to determine whether the art can be labeled Western or Oriental,
Christian or Muslim, there seems to be a need for invoking a foreign
5
I use here Fausta Antoniuccis words to summarize the scene.
6
Fannie Pollak, The Ceiling Paintings in the Alhambra Palace in At the Metropolitan
Museum, Parnassus 1.2 (1929): 14, 17-23, 14.
inuence, without further explanation, even when all evidence for orna-
mental inspiration can be found in the immediate Grenadine context.7
The most inuential study on the ceilings themselves has been Jerrylin
D. Doddss.8 There, she interpreted the wild man scene as one of several
misunderstood loans from French romance scenes:
A similar misunderstanding can be found in the northernmost vault. There, the most
striking representation is that of a wildman who, having captured a lady, is being
attacked by a Christian knight. This strange being springs from the iconography of the
Galahad cycle. Indeed, the wodehouse, or wildman, of the Alhambra is nearly identical
to one on the Metropolitan casket and is quite similar to those on caskets from the
British Museum and the Bargello. Contrary to the Western renditions of the scene and
to the text, however, the wodehouse from the Alhambra attacks a lady who leads a lion
on a chain. This beast belongs to a dierent cycle. He gures in an episode from The
Quest for the Holy Grail in which Lancelot crosses a bridge of swords, only to nd
his way blocked by a chained lion.
Here, the emphasis on the alleged foreignness of the subject-matter is rhe-

torically supported by the use of the word wodehouse to name the salvaje,
along with the mention of the ivory caskets, of which little evidence of
their circulation in Iberia is oered, and an apparent opposition between
the Western renditions of a single scene and text, and the suggestion of a
mixed reading. There is here, in the critical quest for a source, a failure to
consider the fact that wild men and lions are not exclusive to one art form
or another (whether it be caskets or manuscript illumination or sculpture;
troubadour poetry or romance or epic), nor to cycles, whether Tristan or
Grail cycles, or versions of romances which usually render the same scene
in dierent ways, repetitively, in every version of what has been called the
matire de Bretagne, and in native rewritings of the same subjects. In fact,
both wild man and lion are motifs that recur across the literatures of the
period, not only in French literature, but in the Iberian romances as
well, and not only chivalric but also sentimental ction ones and moving
on to heraldics, juridical discourse, both in written form and in their
visual representations in the margins, and to public spectacles. If the
Alhambra uses of these very common topoi do not accurately follow a
7
See the extensive bibliography on the ceilings in Amanda Luysters essay in this collec-
tion, where the foreign origin of the paintings is claimed in a variety of ways.
8
Jerrilynn D. Dodds, The Paintings in the Sala de Justicia of Alhambra: Iconography
and Iconology, The Art Bulletin 61 (1979), 186-197 (hereafter The Paintings).
certain episode of a particular romance version, one might think that it is

not because the scenes are misinterpreted, misused and manipulated ico-
nography . . . with a complete disregard for their symbolic or narrative con-
tent, or that in fact the case is not that the artist, the patron, or both . . .
were either unfamiliar with the stories involved or completely uncon-
cerned,9 but that we have either not located the exact episode being rep-
resented, or more likely because there is no one episode or text that is here
being imitated. Beyond that, my hypothesis here is that thesewild men,
lions, fountains, chess games are in fact being chosen because they con-
stitute types, topoi, commonplaces familiar and available to all, that may
acquire a variety of meanings, sometimes even contradictory ones, within
a vast number of genres, and sometimes even within the same text. That is,
I contend that there is no source because what is intended is precisely the
multiplicity that each of these elements can provide, the malleability of a
repository of charged gures for the construction of narrative itineraries to
be recomposed again and again, to be t into a new context, put in dia-
logue at one moment with these elements on the ceilings, at times with
others, in order to address dierent situations. Such signifying variability
provides a stage for the improvisation of stories in a spectrum of possible
contexts to showcase talents of imagination, eloquence, literary and legal
knowledge, in a pedagogical courtly context. The central ceiling, in this
argument, is what provides the gural grounds for this interpretation, as in
fact, the ten men rehearse the dierent itineraries of narration between the
commonplaces that surround them.
Itinerary of a Commonplace
The basic narrative that the wild man scene proposes is one of violence.
There are two types of violence being suggested: that of the wild man
against the lady, and that of the knight against the wild man, repeated by
the hound chasing the hare under the hooves of the knights horse, mim-
icking either the knights chase of the wild man, or the wild mans chase of
the lady, or both. Marking these with the opposing juridical signs of noble
or justied violence against the natural, primitive and sexual violence of
the wild man is but a basic allegory the gure of the wild man is there to
9
Dodds, The Paintings, 191.
represent. This opposition of civilized (but still erotic, and sexual), orderly
desire called courtly love is opposed to the wild, unrestrained sexual pas-
sion of the salvaje in chivalric and pastoral ctions. Usually, the codication
of violent gestures in the depiction of wild men includes the presence of
the clubmost certainly an unknightly weapon, here distinctly absent
and the seizing of the lady. Diane Wolfthal looks precisely to the wild
mans seizure of the ladys wrists in the Alhambra scene to illustrate her
argument on how this gesture is code for rape, concluding that when a
wild man grasps the wrists of a lady in a mural in the Hall of Justice of the
Alhambra, dated about 1350-1375, this should be read as an assault.10
Wolfthal does in fact acknowledge that this gesture carried a wide variety
of meanings in its frequent use in medieval art, where it is always in some
way a gure of power, of someones power over another, but not necessarily
indexing rape.11 Here, Wolfthal argues that the gesture of the grasped wrist
is shorthand in rape imagery to indicate that force is being used not
especially to characterize the perpetrator of the rape, but to grant credibility
to the victim, especially as rape, as Wolftham argues, was characterized
consistently by the law through the womans outcry, particularly dicult
to represent visually.12 If we follow Wolfthals argument strictly, however,
there is no evidence that what is depicted in the Alhambra ceilings is a rape
scene or even a physically violent one. For the lady, we have noted, nods
her head ever so slightly towards the wild man, and her countenance does
not betray fear. Her face conveys a sort of submission to the situation, and
furthermore, and especially eloquent, the slumber of the powerful lion at
her feet seems to suggest no inherent danger.
On page 195 of her article, Dodds suggests that the central painting in
the Hall of Justice might give us a cue to the reason and function of these
scenes in the lateral paintings when she recalls the Mukhtar al-Hikam min-
iature to the central scene. In the miniature, sages and authors from
diverse moments in history are shown conversing with one another in the
same painting, looking very similar to the Alhambra kings despite their
discrepancies of size and painting medium, which Dodds substitutes here
10
Diane Wolfthal, A Hue and a Cry: Medieval Rape Imagery and its Transformation,
The Art Bulletin 75 (1993): 39-64 (hereafter A Hue and a Cry).
11
Wolfthal, A Hue and a Cry, 42: see also Husband, The Wild Man: The Medieval
Myth and Symbolism (New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980), 70 g. 56, from
where the reference to the Alhambra is taken.
12
Wolfthal, A Hue and a Cry, 43-44.
for Muhammad V and his ancestors. I am reluctant to even speculate on

the identity of the ten men depicted in a formal manner right in front of
the Lionss Court. What I would like to highlight is the depiction of a
conversation among the men. If we are to think that these men converse
about the paintings that frame them, we can see the lateral paintings as
precisely providing them with commonplaces, with topoi for their conver-
sations, and the three ceilings might thus present the idea of courtly enter-
tainment, of cultivated, collective storytelling. The lateral paintings work,
in my view, as a sort of rhetorical repository, a commonplace visual ency-
clopedia that the speakers in the center can make use of at will in their
conversations, and in turn work as examples of (im)proper courtly behav-
ior, of the possibilities of desire, or the legal consequences of certain acts
for the spectator of the ceilings. For these topoi serve as much for narration
as for poetry, for entertainment as for the discussion of legal matters.
The plasticity of the elements used in the lateral paintings is not to be
taken as a light characterization, but as a structuring quality that allows the
apparently disjointed scenes to be charted within multiple and dierent
itineraries. The wild man scene, we have noted, has been relentlessly taken
to be only an attack on the lady. But isnt the lady holding a chain that
restrains a lion? Many of the elements of the taming of nature are present
in the ceilings for the wild man not to be included in that surrender to
beauty that the lion seems to be code for, a reading that would complicate
the interpretation of the scene. Related to this taming of nature is the fact
that the wild man is not looking at the lady, but looking over his shoulder
at the knight who attacks him with a lance. There are a wide variety of nar-
rative possibilities in these elements, each providing a variety of narrative
nuances that do not stay within any given unity but link it to the next ele-
ment, for which the dierence in scale is useful, foregrounding main blocks
of plot and depicting transitions in a smaller scale. This relationality pro-
vides a sort of causality, a connection with other elements surrounding a
given topos that may or may not be pursued.
The wild man is related, in one way, to the lady by holding her wristsin
a threatening, desiring manner, perhaps related to the theme of love. He is
also coupled to the lion through the idea of wildness and nature, of power
and the submission to beauty. Finally, the wild man is allied to the knight
as he turns his gaze upon this intrusion, which perhaps represents opposite
forms of power, of love, of human possibility, of degrees of civilization. But
in another way, knight and wild man might be but one and the same
gure: in the same Tristan cycle that Dodds rules out for the scene, Tristan
goes through a wild stage in the forest, turning into an homo sylvestris.
This phase or stage of the knight was suciently repeated in Iberian
romance to be parodied in Don Quijotes Sierra Morena episode through
the reference to Amads in Pea Pobre (which added the eremitic refer-
ence, and from it, echoed hagiographic images, such as that of the also
hairy Santa Mara Egipciaca). It was narrated not only as a necessary love
phase of the knights story, but in other cases as a specically allegorized,
duplicating or alter ego gure in other genres, such as sentimental ction
in Crcel de amor, or as the mad being besides oneself of later renaissance
epic, in the Orlando Furioso. Whether as desire that bears the sign of the
sexual or even the lascivious, or as the love that borders in madness, the
gure of the wild man couples knight and lady through the various gures
of love in startling and productive ways if seen in this light. The same could
be said about the relation between wild man and lion, where questions of
humanity and bestiality, nature versus culture, instinct and nobility imme-
diately come to mind, beyond the initial and more obvious allusion to the
subjecting power of beautyeloquently echoing the inscription that sur-
vives in the paintings. And the wild man himself, in the variety of mean-
ings that the medieval mind conferred upon him, holds within its gure an
index of chaos through Aristotelian thought and the hylethe silvahe
inhabits to the plethora of references to a Paradisiacal nature state, a neces-
sary period of folly in the process of love, a reference to holiness through
hagiographical penances isolated from society, to unrestrained sexual desire
and as a general stand-in for otherness. The gure of the wild man, in spite
of but probably because of its multiple and contradictory cumulative
nuances, was to become, especially in the fourteenth and fteenth centu-
ries, a common gure in festivals, scenes, recreations of all types, sanc-
tioned by kings and ordered by laws.
This is the case in general for Western European literature and culture.
But Iberia was no exception to this reconguration of meanings visually
articulated through the salvaje. The narrative quality of the paintings of
the Alhambra themselves has motivated critics to look for an exact paral-
lel in romance. Within the literary universe of Iberia, the wild man was
to become linked to chivalric romance. If the gure of the literary wild
man was to be intimately associated with books of chivalry, due to its fre-
quent appearance there (the list includes Primalen, Palmern, Lisuarte de
Greciaboth Feliciano de Silvas and Juan Dazs, the Caballero del Sol,
Espejo de prncipes y caballeros, etc.),13 it is also a recurrent motif in senti-

mental ction and, later, in pastoral. Mixed into the usual contaminations
and loans between these genres is the aforementioned love penance, char-
acterized as a madness echoed by the wild spaces it is staged in.14 A closer
analysis of how these meanings were used in some examples of Iberian
literature might provide us with a panorama of available meanings.
From the rst documented mention of salvajes in Iberia in the early thir-
teenth-century Libro de Alexandre, where it designates uncivilized, unculti-
vated individuals, the uses of salvaje both as a noun and as an adjective are
multiplied in the Iberian Peninsula, from the General Estoria to the Crnica
de Aragn, the Aragonese translation of the Fleur des hystoires de la terre
dOrient (late fourteenth century), Juan Ruizs Libro de buen amor, Juan de
Menas Laberinto de Fortuna (1444), the Comedieta de Pona, etc., a list that
conveys the variety of genres that make use of the gure or concept.
Whether referring to the general individual wild man or to a certain aspect
that seems essential to that wildnesscruelty, primitivism, unsensitiveness,
lack of manners, lack of language skills, but also the extraordinary and the
marvelous by way of the monstrousor whether by association, i.e., the
space of the wild manpreeminently the forest, but also the desert, moun-
tains and islandsand the beasts inhabiting those same spaces, these uses
provide a vast but cohesive constellation of ideas around the wild man.15
The rst documented mention of wild men in Iberian literature in the early
13
See Antoniucci, esp. 38-42.
14
The caballero salvaje might come to mind as another variant complicating the picture,
recalling characterizations such as that of Dinadn in the Tristn de Leons. Dinadn how-
ever, is not a particular mix of wild man and knight, but the specic type of jongleur that
Martn Prez described in his Libro de las confesiones of the beginning of the fourteenth
century, a type who made a living by jousting as a spectacle, a sort of gladiator or boxer.
See the discussion in Santiago Lpez-Ros, Salvajes y razas monstruosas en la literatura caste-
llana medieval (Madrid: Fundacin Universitaria Espaola, 1999) (hereafter Salvajes), esp.
p. 97; also Francisco Layna, Bufn y caballero salvaje. A propsito del Dinadn caste-
llano, Anuario de Letras XXXVI (1998): 279-306. A later inversion of the motif can be
seen in late medieval comparisons of Muslims to wild men in terms of violence or cruelty,
which Lpez-Ros documents, such as Gauberto Fabricio de Vagads Crnica de Aragn
(1499), or Martn Martnez de Ampiss translation of Bernhard von Breydenbachs Peregri-
natio in Terram Sanctam (Salvajes, 26).
15
For a history of the gure, see Roger Bartra, El salvaje en el espejo (Mxico: Universi-
dad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico, 1992), and El salvaje articial (Mxico, Universidad
Nacional Autnoma de Mxico/Era, 1997) (English trans. The Articial Savage: Modern
Myths of the Wild Man (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1997)). For an
thirteenth-century Libro de Alexandre proposes three stanzas where Alex-

ander encounters, among many other monsters, mountain men of both
genders, young and old, and it is not an image of love or madness that it is
meant to represent, but one of linguistic dierence:
Entre la muchedumbre de los otros bestiones,

fall omnes monteses, mugieres e barones,
los unos ms de das, los otros moajones.
Andavan con las bestias paiendo los gamones.
Non visti ninguno ninguna vestidura;
todos eran vellosos en toda su fechura;
de noche, como bestias, yazin en tierra dura.
Qui los non entendiesse avri era pavura!
Ovieron con cavallos dellos a alcanar,
ca eran muy ligeros, non los poden tomar.
Maguer les preguntavan, non les sabin fablar
que non los entendin, e avin a callar.
[Among the masses of other monsters, he found mountain people, women

and men, some were older, the others were young. They were with the
beasts grazing the pastures. None of them wore any clothing, they had hair
all over their bodies; at night, like beasts, they lay on the hard ground. He
who did not know of them would be terried! They had to catch them
with horses, for they were very light-footed and could not be trapped,
though they asked them questions, they did not know how to respond for
they did not understand them, and thus kept silent.]16
The space where these men are found is what equates them with salvajes
as an example of the homo agrestis, for they inhabit the mountain, which is
a space of the wild, and lack manners or culture, here signied by their
sleeping and eating habits. In terms of their physique, they are described as
covered in hair, and characterized as being especially fast, for Alexanders
men must chase them with horses. Their appearance might be scary, but
only to those not understanding them, that is, those who did not know
exhaustive catalogue of the gure in Iberian literature, but also with numerous examples in
other disciplines, see Lpez-Ros, Salvajes 20 and ss.
16
Libro de Alexandre, ed. Juan Casas Rigall (Madrid: Castalia, 2007), stanzas 2472-
2474, 678. In footnotes to the stanzas, Casas Rigall writes that the Alexandre passages
conate a variety of references taken from dierent chapters in the Historia de preliis, thus
originally depicting the wild man for the rst time.
who or what they were, suggesting a disjunction between a wild appear-

ance and the possibility of a violent nature. Fausta Antoniucci rightly
remarks that what these savages are seen as lacking are the cultural tools
that separate man from beast: dress, a bed, and most of all, language.17
I disagree with Antoniucci, however, who interprets the verses to mean
that the savages do not have a language, for I think the Alexandre only
remarks on the fact that knights and savages do not understand each other,
that is, the Libro de Alexandre stages a problem of communication, of a
lack of translation, a linguistic and cultural dierence: even though they
[Alexanders men] questioned them, they [the savages] did not know how
to answer [back]/for they [the savages] did not understand them, and thus
remained silent. Antoniucci remarks that one can detect in this vision
the strong inux of an essentially cultivated line of thought, foreign to the
mythical sphere and folklore, which from Aristotle reached Christian
writers and, later, humanists. At the basis of this line of thinking is a
denition of the human essence, of man as a naturally social and political
being (fsei politikn zon).18 Even if a distinction is to be made between
the barbaric and the savage, what resounds here is the opposition between
city and country, cultivated and feral, in the social and communitarian
vision of the political, corresponding to chivalric ideology and courtly
culture in general.
Beyond a general connotation of the salvaje as an other, in its association
with monstrous races, which can be attested especially in libros de viajes,
the closer version, the wild man that prowled in the less distant wilderness
could be understood simply as a contradiction of society, a society rational-
ized as courtly life. This contradiction, in turn, branches out into two
paradigms: the wild man prowling in spaces of the near, a sort of neighbor
inhabiting the spaces that make part of the civilized world, but that eschew
its lawsforests, mountains, islands, desertsand the wild man prowling
within each and every one.
From the rst paradigm results a series of possibilities within Iberian
literature, from female gures of wildness, such as the fourth serrana of the
Libro de buen amor to the more stereotyped gure in books of chivalry
(Andandona in Amads, to give an example among many); to the more
17
Antoniucci, El salvaje en la comedia, 32.
18
Antoniucci, El salvaje en la comedia, 32-33.
allegorized wild men of sentimental ction; the duplication of the courtly

vs. savage in pastoral, and even into the erotized savagery of cancionero
poetry. Sentimental ction, as Alan Deyermond has studied, presents wild
men in a surprising role, for they are there not as counterpoints or antago-
nists of the perfect courtly lover. Wild men and women in sentimental
ction identify with courtly lovers and ideal love and Deyermond stud-
ies the case in Rodrguez del Padrns Estoria de dos amadores, interpolated
in the early 15th century Siervo libre de amor.19 When the protagonists
Ardanlier and Liessa must ee to the savage space at the foot of a desper-
ate mountain, they in fact ee the life of the court to trade it for the
life of wild men, where and for whom their love is possible. Deyermond
labels this ight to the wild a game, a pretense of savageness that comes
close to the pretense of pastoral life in Don Quijote, but also reminds us
of Tristan and Isoldes life in the forest and the possibility of giving in to
love, in a characterization of sexual love in a positive way that must never-
theless distance itself literally from the space of the court.20 Perhaps the
curse of Eneas and Dido is already there, however, as all of these protago-
nists meet tragic deaths, as if in a delayed condemnation of their acts
of lovein a condemnation for their uncourtliness. But what is interest-
ing here is that the savage life, here almost reduced to the spacethe
sylva that makes these hominem sylvestriwithout any of the bodily mark-
ings of hair, is also the life of love, celebrated in its pursuit of passion and
unrestraint.
Even if also marked by tragedy, other works of sentimental ction make
use of the wild man gure in completely dierent ways. The best known,
the wild man appearing at the beginning of Diego de San Pedros Crcel de
amor (1492), is minutely described as a cavallero assi feroz de presencia
como espantoso de vista, cubierto todo de cabello a manera de salvaje,
and appropriately personies Desire. Here, another interesting relation
between the wild and the courtly is established, for the savage himself
claims to have had a courtly upbringing, which has taught him manners
that are in stark contrast to his natural aggression. For Deyermond, this
contamination takes away from the savage and turns him into a hybrid
19
Alan Deyermond, El hombre salvaje en la ccin sentimental, in Tradiciones y pun-
tos de vista en la ccin sentimental (Mxico: Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico,
1993), 21.
20
Deyermond, El hombre salvaje, 22.
of wild and courtly.21 This strange condition makes his status as the head
gure of the allegory of courtly love that makes up the rst part of the
Crcel probably already a sign of the disarticulation of allegory as a system
of meaning that Oscar Martn has studied.22 However, Deyermond does
not underline that it is also a suggestion of pretense, of costume, of pass-
ing, for the strange knight is not said to be a wild man but to be covered
in hair in the manner of wild men.23 Here, what the distinction suggests is
that the possibility of acting like a wild man, of looking like or passing for
a wild man invokes particular characteristics. These brings us to the second
paradigm, that of the savage within.
Fleeing social space to cultivate ones own wildness is a resource sought
after by protagonists of both chivalric and sentimental ction. Amads life
of desperation and penitence as Beltenebros in the Pea Pobre is emulated
by the protagonist of San Pedros Arnalte y Lucenda and by Don Quijote
himself if the episode of Sierra Morena. What all of these reenactments
have in common is the tone of despair, the sadness and loneliness sought
as a result of love. If the search for a sort of purication through the pen-
ance of leaving society reminds us, on one hand, of the common image of
hermits and saints such as Onofre, Mara Egipciaca and Crisstomo, sav-
ageness as a stage or phase of the religio amoris, on the other hand, makes
the wildand its connotations of violence, lawlessness, passion, etc.
intrinsic to courtly love, in a move that will make the vocabulary itself
of courtly love ambiguous and ultimately push both courtly love and
sentimental ction to the point of breakdown.24 As Patricia Grieve, Joseph
21
Deyermond, El hombre salvaje, 22-23.
22
See his article in this same issue; see also Oscar Martn, Allegory and the Spaces of
Love, in Theories of Medieval Iberia, Oscar Martn and Simone Pinet (Eds), special issue of
diacritics 36.3 (2006): 132-146.
23
Lpez-Ros precises this dierence in characterization.
24
As in cancionero poetry, see Keith Whinnom, La poesa amatoria de la poca de los Reyes
Catlicos (Durham: University of Durham, 1981). See also Angus MacKay, Religion, cul-
ture and ideology on the Late Medieval Castilian-Granadan Frontier, in Medieval Frontier
Societies, ed. by Robert Bartlett and Angus MacKay (New York/Oxford: Clarendon Press/
Oxford University Press, 1989), 217-244, who looks at the Alhambra ceilings as examples
of a frontier ideology in which loans and takeovers, spectacles and role-playing are crucial
to evidence a shared artistic language. MacKay summarizes Doddss article, but especially
through the gure of the wildman oers, without developing an argument, the overlaps in
meaning suggested by the presence of the gure in the ceilings, books of chivalry, sentimen-
tal ction and spectacles (224).
Gwara, Jorge Checa, Lillian von der Walde Moheno and others have
shown, violence is intrinsic to the ction of Juan de Flores. Tied to the
protagonists, as Deyermond analyzes, the gure of the savage turns senti-
mental ction into a political commentary.25
The sheer variety of genres and the use of the gure of the wild man in
dierent contexts to express a number of meanings in a large spectrum of
attitudes seem to make it impracticable to claim a single text that can con-
vey or conrm unequivocal meaning for the wild man scene in the Alham-
bra ceilings. Moreover, it seems uncertain why criticism of these paintings
would invoke a foreign text or texts, whether English or French, as the
basis for this gure, given the abundant use of the wild man in the litera-
ture of Iberia that suggest familiarity, even a commonplace status of the
gure.
The wild man does not need to be related either to foreign art mani-
festations, especially if they seem to be readily available in Iberia. In the
visual arts, the rst unequivocal appearance of the motif, according to
Santiago Lpez-Ros, is in the late thirteenth century cloister of the Pam-
plona cathedral, where a hunting knight encounters a wild man in a for-
est.26 Lpez-Ros, in a comprehensive study that brings together materials
from folkloric and mythological interpretations of the salvaje with their
literary and architectural representations in Spain, asserts that from the
beginning of the fourteenth century, representations of wild men abound
in Hispanic art, and cites examples of reliefs, royal seals, chapitels, arteso-
nados, etc. Without underlining that at least two of these examples are in
fact ceiling paintings, Lpez-Ros goes on to discuss the wild man of the
Alhambra ceilings. He briey summarizes Roger S. Loomiss, Jos Ma. de
Azcrates, and Jerrilyn D. Doddss articles on the topic, but does not dis-
cuss their theses, and goes on to discuss other examples, two of six being
paintings on ceilings.27 The motif would become pervasive in the fteenth
25
See Deyermonds additional comments to his essay in Tradiciones, 37-41.
26
Santiago Lpez-Ros, Salvajes, 55.
27
The entire list of ceilings depicting wild men scenes is: a fragment of a Castilian arte-
sonado now kept in the Museum of the diocese of Vich (Barcelona), 14th c.; in the ceiling
of the monastery of Vilea (Burgos), 14th c.; paintings in the ceiling of the church of San
Milln (Los Balbases, Burgos), rst half of 15th c.; the artesonado of the Hall of the Wild-
men of the Palacio del Infantado in Guadalajara. There are more examples to be consid-
ered, and the turn in the interpretation from a threat to virtue to the defense of virtue,
century, moving from literature, painting and sculpture to tapestry weav-

ing, as marginalia (especially in books of hours), and particularly as the
bearer of armorial shields.28 In the arts, nally, the last representation of
wild men to be mentioned by Lpez Ros is as guarding doors, sculpted to
their frames, sometimes to the tympani, breaching the entry.
Yet another manifestation of wild men in Hispanic society should be
brought to mind. Lpez-Ros claims that the rst incontrovertible docu-
mentations of wild men in celebrations and dramatic ctions can be dated
to the end of the fourteenth century, specically to the celebrations held in
Valencia on August 7th, 1373 to celebrate the arrival of the dukes of
Gerona. Given the central role of the gure of the wild man, Lpez-Ros
writes, the date can be moved back to the beginning of the century, in tune
with testimonies of the motif in the rest of Europe.29 In particular, these
dramatizations consisted of a battle between wild men and knights,
whether in popular or courtly spectacles, but especially in celebrations to
honor members of the nobility. Along these lines was the entrems played
for the coronation of Martn I in Zaragoza in 1399 in which wild men
successfully defended a lioness from knighted attackers.30 This particular
use of the wild man gure underscores the role-playing involved in the
as the savages used to guard shields convey, seems interesting. From this architectural detail,
the use of wildmen to adorn portadas or title pages in books was just natural, as the archi-
tectural frontispiece for the printing press became prevalent (Salvajes, 56-57). See Juan
Carlos Ruiz Souza, The Crown of Castile and Al-Andalus, Medieval Encounters 12 (2006);
360-387, for the faaces of buildings of the Crown of Castile, including that of the Palacio
del Infantado.
28
This topic has received a good deal of critical attention. See Lpez-Ros, Salvajes,
60-62 and footnotes.
29
Salvajes, 65. See also Antoniucci, El salvaje en la comedia, 44-47, who cites other
spectacles, especialy the example of Primalen, where the knights themselves are enter-
tained by the spectacle of a combat between two savages.
30
Salvajes, 66.These types of dramatizations, as source or even as relative inuence, have
a tendency to be dismissed without much ado by art historians. Bernheimer, for instance,
compares the Bal des ardents, celebrated in Paris in 1392 and in which Charles VI himself
participated, to a Burgundian tapestry of the fteenth century kept in Ntre Dame de
Nantilly in Saumur (67-68), which was dismissed by Roger-Armand Weigert in favor of
a still to be identied chivalric romance. A hierarchy of art forms should not hinder our
perspective, especially if a source can only be claimed in hypothetical form. Lpez-Ros-
documents a variety of these spectacles, both courtly and popular, within the Peninsula and
puts them in their European context.
spectacularization of courtly life, in the possibility of a staging of violence

that can go either way (that is, that the wild men can win), and that the
violence is there to serve as entertainment rst, and secondarily as a liter-
ary, psychic or political commentary. The wild man then, presented here as
a dress, a costume that can be used within the court to represent a variety
of oppositions to that same courtly life is added to the many other motifs
traced above.
Charting a Course
The selection of the motif of the wild man, due to the enormous attention
it has received, and to its healthy afterlife in the theater of the Golden Age,
especially, has not been disingenuous in the Alhambra ceilings, as in that
vast spectrum of manifestations the motif can still be traced and exhausted
in its possibilities. The same cannot be done with the many other motifs
that articulate the narratives of the Alhambra ceilings: the fountain, the
chess game, the tower scene, scenes of jousting and hunting, etc., all with
entries and many variants in the motif indexes, all related to courtly life and
with an exorbitant number of examples in the visual arts and literatures of
Iberia. To my mind, all of them follow a rhetorical commonplace reason
suggested above. Their role is quite literally as pretexts, as minimal narrative
units that serve as excuses or triggers of narration in dierent possibilities
oered by the semantic charge with which all of them are imbued.
As commonplaces for narration, the dierent images can be articulated
to tell various stories, emphasizing dissimilar and sometimes contradictory
elements that can lead to literary innovation but also to disquieting inter-
pretations. The use of topoi is crucial to this productivity, not only because
of the audiences familiarity with them, but because of their capacity to
serve as connectors, as mediators between the creative paths summoned in
enunciation. What is meant to be innovative here (as elsewhere in medieval
literature) is how these motifs are to be linked in the performance itself,
the ways in which words are to be enunciated to place cause and eect,
verbs used to set an itinerary for narration to occur: this is of course inti-
mately dependent on the eloquence of the narrator and the ability to
improvise new courses across the ceilings. Beyond the literary capacities of
the paintings, the potential these stories hold have other interpretive con-
texts beyond the poetics they demand. The implicit rearmation of roy-
alty in a courtly context, serving as an armation of monarchy supported
by courtly activities is also buttressed by the possibility of using these stories

as juridical situations to be considered. As such, the pedagogical function
of the architectural complex, proposed by Juan Carlos Souza, is thus
conrmed in a startling way in the paintings of the Hall of Justice.31 Lit-
erature is here a means not only for the much elaborated critical apparatus
for royalty in the form of courtly traditions, especially studied in the con-
text of Alfonsos alegra de la corte, but as a pedagogical exercise in jurid-
ical discourse, essential to the images enactment of power. The consideration
of other elements in the romance narrative scenes of the ceilings can sup-
port this argument. Chess, for example, has been explicitly considered not
only as linked to monarchy and nobility as tting activity, but also as exer-
cise in strategy, as a pedagogical task common to Muslims, Christians and
Jews, and thus its presence in the ceilings could be related not only to a
chivalric scene, or to a courtly pastime, but to a regal duty and a metaphor
for territorial strategy.32 In the same manner, the forest depicted in the
ceilings is to be read as representing royal hunting grounds, but also as the
adventurous forest or oresta of knights, it is the garden of lovers or a locus
amoenus, and it is also the locus horroris or agrestis, the space without law
because it lies outside the civilizing eect of the court: thus the stories can
not only walk from one space of law to another, from architecture to gar-
den of lovers, or from hunting scene to chivalric joust, but also trace the
space behind (as background) or in between them (as dividing the scenes),
as that space which is outside the law because on its margins, a space that
is specically underlined and brought into visibility/readability by the wild
man, hunter and hunted, beast and human, desiring and in penance,
within and without the law but at the center of possible narrations.
The dierent interpretations that the wild man oers, from a dierentiated
other to a cultural other to yet a psychically-othered self can also be of
interest when considering the dierent networks established not only to
narrative elements that are contiguous to the wild man but to similar
motifs that seem to echo the wild man scene. In this same volume, Dodds
emphasizes the relation between what she deems the most important scene
31
See Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza, El Palacio de los Leones de la Alhambra: madrasa,
zawiya y tumba de Muhammad V, Al-Qantara 22 (2001); 77-120, who argues for the
Palace of the Lions as a palatial madrasa for the Alhambra complex through its architectural
presentation.
32
See Olivia Remie Constable Chess and Courtly Culture in Medieval Castile: The
Libro de ajedrez of Alfonso X, Speculum 82 (2007), 301-348.
in the ceilings, that in which a Muslim knight wounds or perhaps kills a

Christian, with the wild man scene, which through nuanced repetition
reinforces the ideological values of the rst scene, read by Dodd as the
establishment of Muslim superiority over Christian. This is of course
brought about when considering the wild man as an opposite of the knight.
But when regarding the wild man as a stage in the life of the same knight,
or when imagining the wild man as the sexual desire that must be domi-
nated by courtly love, the scene in which the knight attacks the wild man
might be read as either an elaboration of a particular stage in the love pro-
cess or as an internal struggle to dominate sexual desire, as I have shown
above. What are the eects of these interpretations for the related Muslim-
Christian scene at the other end of the palace? A conicted and contested
alliance between cultures in which phases of dominance or a dominance
within are staged here for Nasrid, Castilian and our interpretations in the
Alhambra ceilings should not be beyond our critical (or storytelling) pos-
sibilities. Who is beyond (or beneath) the law if the scenes are to be read
in this key? Who succeeds in domination? Can the Christian be in fact
eliminated or must dominance be limited to control or repression, as sex-
ual desire must? In the end, what is most interesting in this possible itiner-
ary in the Alhambra ceilings is the answer to the question (inverting, or
suggesting an alternative hierarchy for the relation between images): what
does the Christian, in the Muslim-Christian knights scene, desire? The
wild man is always related to two concepts, courtliness or the law, and
sexual love or desire. What is the object of desire of the Christian that lies
beyond courtliness and demands from the Muslim knight at the other end
of the ceiling to curtail the Christian by spearing him? I am, of course,
suggesting that this object of desire is the territory itself of Spain, gured
in the other scene as a trapped but conceding lady that holds in one of her
hands the chain that leads a sleeping lion, here perhaps in irony unaware,
but also perhaps, ready to jump, maybe in similar containment as the lions
in the court outside the Hall. The ladys submission to dominance is the
ambiguous guration of a political alliance at the foundation of the Nasrid
kingdom, permanently threatened and possible only in containment.33 In
33
Granada was, from beginning to end, a besieged vassal state, writes Mara Rosa
Menocal in her introduction to The Literature of al-Andalus: the remarkably pristine
Alhambra may be one of the only monuments built avant la lettre to monumentalize the
inevitability of loss, and thus to nosalgia itself. From those miradores at the Alhambra we
should be able to look out and see everything that the Nasrids saw, and feel their obligation
this quasi-allegorical reading of the lady as the territorywhether the Pal-

ace, Granada, or al-Andalus, the knights spearing of the wild man
gures the necessary control or elimination of baser instincts through
courtly models for the liberation of the lady, as a sort of diplomatic inter-
pretation. Conversely, read from the other end, liberation comes from the
elimination of the Christian other, the control of the Christian neighbor
or the repression or excision of the Christian within, in varying degrees of
social and cultural interpretations of al-Andalus.
The recurrent hunting motif emphasized in scale in the paintings as the
activity of kings and noble men does not only relate particularly well in
this reading to the lesser-scale one of the love motifs in terms of desire as
metaphorical hunting, but especially through a territorial claim that can be
supported by the law of land under royal privilege and the guration of an
ambiguous alliance. But this is only one of the many itineraries, or walks,
the paintings allow us to chart. I am not presenting this as a denitive, or
even less, as a closed reading, because the object of my analysis here is to
showcase the constructive and interpretive possibilities of commonplaces,
a practice well established in medieval rhetoric that is here presented for
royalty to exercise its eloquence, both literary and juridical, but also for the
spectator, or the surveyor, or the rambler of the Palace, moving from love
to conquest, from predator to ally, if only to retrace her steps and start
again, telling a dierent story of the Hall of Kings in the Palace of the
Alhambra.
This reading of the wild man that can be shown to be political beyond
the historical intricacies of chivalric ideology into the imagined historiog-
raphies of Iberia, the real struggles for dominance, the continuously nego-
tiated cultural savoir-faire, is just one of the many levels, one ornament,
one of the gazes with which to glimpse at the dazzling spectacle of the
Alhambra. For if the wild man can simultaneously be the stand-in for the
near other, that other that one lives with, and it can also manifest an other-
ness that lies withinas a stage, a phase, or something that must be civi-
lized, then as a metaphor for Christian-Muslim relations in the Nasrid
period it seems particularly eloquent. For the complex multiculturalism
that was al-Andalus, the dismissals, the loans and takeovers, alliances and
to remember an al-Andalus already gone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000),

6-7. The lady as the territory in her submission seems to be in this context of love and
violence especially eloquent for the articulation of this poetics of exile and loss.
betrayals both political and artistic, has at its core a violence that at times
was expressed as external, at times as a split self. In the beauty of the Alham-
bra, the possibility of reading these images as signs of dierent things in
the interplays of love and power, law and desire, allows us to reconstruct as
parts of a puzzle the many dierent stories that the last of the Islamic
dynasties in Iberia told itself.
Medieval
Encounters
Loves Subjects: The Alhambra Ceilings, Sentimental

Fiction and Allegory
Oscar Martn
Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Yale University,
New Haven, CT 06520-8204, USA
e-mail: oscar.martin@lehman.cuny.edu
Abstract
This article analyzes the way in which allegorical and narrative motifs work in the fourteenth-
century Alhambra ceilings and in fteenth-century Castilian sentimental ction. It argues that
while the Alhambra ceilings, based on courtly allegory, convey a dignied statement concern-
ing the potential of allegory to structure a political lesson while at the same time registering
cultural assimilation and social crisis, allegory in sentimental ction is problematized from
the outset, showing that the genres evolution renders allegory ineective to account for loves
subjectivity as it was attached to an outmoded courtly subjectivity. In this way, the painted
ceilings of the Alhambra can be interpreted as a stage in the use of allegory in courtly context
in the Iberian Peninsula within a larger group of works that make use of similar codes.
Keywords
Allegory, love, sentimental ction, Carcel de Amor, Siervo libre de amor
From the many insights in Cynthia Robinsons important reinterpretation

of Alhambras ceilings of the Hall of Justice in this same issue, I nd the
reinterpretation of motifs that were traditionally perceived as Arthurian
material especially compelling. Furthermore, her emphasis on the impor-
tance of an Iberian tradition centered on Flores and Blancaor, which is in
dialogue with other traditions that dramatized notions of love, nobility
and ethnic identity, as well as her assertion that these traditions are dis-
posed iconographically in a fragmentary way reevaluate, essentially, the
way in which we perceived these enigmatic ceilings, adding new layers of
interpretation to Jerrilyn Dodds seminal article.1 In addition to these new
1
Jerrilynn D. Dodds, The Paintings in the Sala de Justicia of the Alhambra: Iconogra-
phy and Iconology. The Art Bulletin 61 (1979), 186-197.
O. Martn / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 390-406 391 [239]
literary and cultural adscriptions, there are two other insights that open
new research venues: rst, that there is a range of iconographical motifs
that would support a meditative function, linked to judicial roles reinforc-
ing statements about Nasrid culture; second, that this meditative interpre-
tation is achieved through a careful blend of narrative and allegorical
registers. Allegory, which in the Alhambra ceilings functions particularly in
animal iconography and in the depiction of spaces, is essential, then, in the
negotiation of meaning in the paintings, which seem to extol restraint in a
judicial frame.2 Interestingly, Robinsons interpretation demonstrates an
operational blend of registers at the pictorial level that, quite strikingly,
replicates the narrative disposition of the early sentimental ctional tradi-
tion from circa 1450 onward in Castile. In fact, the sentimental ction
that will emerge almost a century after the Alhambra paintings, but whose
origins are found in the same traditions of courtly love exploited by the
ceilings, is characterized by the same conation of narrative and allegorical
registers, the same acute sense of spatiality understood in allegorical terms,
and a nuanced variation of the intellectual debate concerning love and the
function of the chivalric ethos that shaped the Alhambras pictorial repre-
sentations in the Hall of Justice. I will begin, therefore, by positing that,
just as the Alhambra ceilings weave together discrete narratives of courtly
love, imposing upon them allegorical interpretations through the simulta-
neous deployment of spaces and motifs, and thus presenting the cultural
value of courtly love as a possible tool for and path toward political medi-
tation, sentimental ction itself reevaluates the use of allegory from a
narrative standpoint in order to bring together disparate love traditions.
However, as I will show, this reevaluation of courtly love will eventually
render allegory useless; these conclusions drawn from an examination of lit-
erary narrative, nally, will serve as a vantage point for a nal re-examination
of the Hall of Justice ceilings.
The relation of allegory to Iberian sentimental ction, forged in the
mid-fteenth century, has been one of the basic tenets of scholarship con-
cerned with sentimental romance in the Iberian Peninsula. Regula Roh-
land de Langbehn divided the ever-growing corpus of sentimental texts
in three chronological groups. The rst was identied with Siervo libre de
amor, conceived as the origin of the genre, and was characterized by the
inuence of courtly poetry in the allegorical construction of love, by an
emotional analysis of love, and a discussion on whether love is morally
2
See Cynthia Robinsons article in this issue.
[240] 392 O. Martn / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 390-406
acceptable or not. A second central group, loosely dated to the end of the
fteenth century and of which Crcel de amor is the principle example, is
marked by a widening of subjects and new generic inuences, having as a
principle thematic focus an impossible love. Finally, a third group, cen-
tered around the Celestina, opens up a myriad of possibilities for further
re-elaborations.3 For the purposes of this essay, I will concentrate particu-
larly on the Siervo libre de amor and the Crcel de amor. In my opinion,
these two texts not only eloquently demonstrate the use of sentimental
allegory, but also can be taken as case studies in the evolution of allegory as
it formalizes loves subjectivity, courtly love and politics. In other words, I
endeavor to address the ways in which allegory and courtly love are
reshaped in sentimental ction, and how the political validation of courtly
love shown in the Alhambra ceilings is tinged with a much more somber
perspective than that which had earlier characterized the concept and the
cultural and literary codes it generated, all of which were treated as prob-
lematic in the sentimental tradition from the onset. Indeed, as Stephen
Greenblatt has pointed out, allegorical reinterpretations are almost always
linked to social crisis: One discovers that allegory arises in periods of loss,
periods in which a once powerful theological, political, or familial author-
ity is threatened with eacement.4 This crisis, in turn, produces, accord-
ing to Joel Finneman, the abuse of allegory, whose function is to defer
what can not be explicitly stated in one level of signication to another
level of meaning: More historically, we can note that allegory seems regu-
larly to surface in critical or polemical atmospheres, where for political or
metaphysical reasons there is something that cannot be said.5 Considered
within this framework, the paintings in the Hall of Justice can be seen as
symbolically projecting though allegory a sense of loss and social crisis in
the contested fourteenth-century Nasrid court, but one which is in turn
reinvented as an exaltation of ennobling courtly love and its political praxis
in judicial contexts.6 In contrast, in Castilian sentimental ction from the
3
Rohland de Langbehn, Regula. La unidad genrica de la novela sentimental espaola de
los siglos XV y XVI. Papers of the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar 17. London: Depart-
ment of Hispanic Studies. Queen Mary and Westeld College, 1998.
4
Greenblatt, Stephen. Preface. Allegory and Representation. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt
(Baltimore; London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), vii-xiii (viii).
5
Fineman, Joel. The Structure of Allegorical Desire, Allegory and Representation,
26-60, 28.
6
Robert Irwin points out that the Alhambra was built on the cheap by a material society
scarce in rich ornaments, and more importantly, by a society in which intellectuals felt that
mid-fteenth century forward, a new social crisis is translated as the inad-

equacy of chivalric subjectivity and its attached allegory to account for
social and political transformations. In other words, allegoryinsofar as it
may be used as a mode to imprint authority and cultural value onto the
chivalric ethos, whether in the visual arts or in narrativemay be charac-
terized as an absolute failure from 1450 on.
The Siervo Libre De Amor and the Limits of Allegory

The Siervo libre de amors argument is simple.7 Disguised under an episto-
lary cover, this ctional autobiography traces a narrative centered around
the lovers falling in love according to the courtly code; the disdain he sub-
sequently suers; the lovers consequent falling into despair, his moral
rehabilitation and, nally, the process of his detachment from human love
and the replacement of his aspirations to earthly fulllment with a quest
for divine love. In other words, the narrative chronicles a spatial and spir-
itual journey from the servitude of courtly love to the freedom brought
about by the lovers rejection of all physical love. Especially relevant to the
present discussion is the fact that this journey is ctionalized through a
complex allegorical structure. The three structural sections in the Siervo
libre de Amor are tied to three dierent psychological moments of the lov-
ers evolution, represented, in turn, by three dierent paths that signal,
eloquently, the correspondence between the divisions that structure the
text and the psychological development of love. Allegory in the Siervo is
active, produced by mental and physical perambulations, behind which
may be glimpsed not only Dantes example, but also those oered by pen-
itential traditions, as has been articulated by Gregory Andrachuck and
they belonged to a backwoods culture on the perimeter of Islam (The Alhambra, Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004, 71). As a culture that was nostalgic of past
greatness: the Alhambra was an attempt to replicate the glories of previous palaces of van-
ished dynasties but with only limited resources (71). For a concise background of the
social and political crisis of Nasrid court see especially Poisoned Paradise (69-88); where
Irwin surveys and synthesizes the most important literature on the subject. For the relation
between the Alhambra, its politics, and the culture that shaped the building see Antonio
Fernndez Puertas The Three Great Sultans of al-Dawla al-Ismailiyya al-Nasiriyya who
Built the Fourteenth-Century Alhambra: Ismail I, Yusuf I, Muhammad V (713-793/1314-
1391), Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1997), 1-25.
7
For a categorization of allegory in Siervos see Louise Haywood, La escura selva. Alle-
gory in Early sentimental romance, Hispanic Review 68 (2000), 415-428.
Michael Gerli.8 This dynamic allegory that reects the temporal evolution
of love is constructed through a systematic deployment spatial topoi that
conceptualize the shift in the lovers mind from joy to despair; therefore,
while self-imposed exile symbolizes the abandonment of the social world
of aristocratic courtly love following the withdrawal of the ladys favor, the
morbid and anguished state of mind of the lover is made explicit through
the use of the metaphoric tropes of wilderness and harsh mountains. In
addition, these tropes are multiplied by deliberately placed poetic fallacies,
through which the surrounding landscapes are transformed from the gar-
dens of love initially perceived by the lover, similar to those appearing in
the Hall of Justice ceilings, into landscapes of infertility and discord.
Finally, allegory involves psychological struggles that, in the moments of
greatest discord impel the lover toward abject depression and thoughts of
suicide. The emotional turmoil of the second section (the time at which
the lover remains enamored, but his love is unrequited) is represented
by spatial metaphors of descent which, in the text, lead the lover not to
Paradise, but rather into a hell conceived especially for the punishment of
those who suer loves torments. Once understanding is regained, salva-
tion is conceptualized by ascent and upward movement, and by the lovers
arrival at the sea, which coincides with his recovery of discretion and good
judgment.9 In short, we have here a sentimental text which argues for
the possibility of salvation through the renunciation of love as shaped by
the courtly code; this achievement of this salvation, moreover, is repre-
sented through the deployment of a series of conventional allegorical
motifs. Allegory, in other words, although it is initially employed in order
to channel the subjectivity love, ultimately leads the lover to reject that
very subjectivity.
8
See, for example. Gregory Andrachuck, The function of the Estoria de dos amadores
within the Siervo Libre de Amor, Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispnicos 2 (1977),
27-38, and Michael Gerli Siervo libre de Amor and the Penitential Tradition, Journal of
Hispanic Philology 12 (1987-88), 93-102; or more recently an aggiornamiento of his
argumentation in The Old French Source of Siervo Libre de amor: Guillaume de Deguilev-
illes Le Roman des trois plerinages, Studies on the Spanish Sentimental Romance (1440-
1550): Redening a Genre. Eds. Joseph J. Gwara and Michael Gerli (London: Tamesis,
1997), 3-19.
9
See Pedro Ctedra, Los primeros pasos de la ccin sentimental. A propsito del
Siervo Libre de Amor, Amor y pedagoga en la Edad Media. (Salamanca: Universidad de
Salamanca, 1989), 143-159.
Even as allegory structures the lovers internal psychology, a long narra-

tive parenthesis occurs between the second and third moments of the nar-
rative, described above. This comes in the form of the so-called Story of
Two Lovers (Estoria de dos amadores). Just at the moment of his greatest
despair, when the lover has reached the limits of his endurance and is pre-
pared to die, the autobiographical narrator intrudes on this narrative ten-
sion with an elaborate discourse in which he bemoans the fact that he will
die for love of an unmerciful lady, unlike Ardanlier, upon whose story he
now embarks. The interpolated story, explained as a recalling, or an elab-
orate dream, opens up the narrative onto new perspectives, particularly
onto a dierently structured narrative space and, most importantly, onto a
love which is not structured by allegory, and whose relationship to alle-
gorical space is found in its external exemplarity, in so far as it leads the
lover into extreme social and domestic destruction. Indeed, this destruc-
tion represents the end of a tragic tale of love which has not proceeded
according to an orderly series of allegorical topoi but rather has overcome
the closed system of allegory in order to bring an emphatic and violent end
to the otherwise open process of loves development. In other words, alle-
gory has not been able to account for these eects which exist outside the
courtly system, and it has therefore been suspended in order to allow the
narrative to move in new directions.
This exemplum, once internalized into the larger narrative, will serve to
articulate the shift from the second to the third moment, and the subse-
quent rejection of human love. Structurally, the story of Ardanlier and
Liessa is a digression in the form of an exemplum, introduced as meditation
by the authorial gure himself; it is also, however, a narrative interruption
that de-structures the allegorical frame of the larger ctional construction.
In a way, it destroys the ction of the larger narrative by signaling, from
within this very structure, its anatomy. Thus, as allegory is suspended, so
also is the ctional armature that sustains it. Indeed, it is the narrative
interruption of the interpolated story which, in the end, destroys both
allegory and armature.
A closer examination of the specic propositions made by the interpo-
lated story is thus crucial to an understanding of why allegory has been
deemed insucient and why this interruption is necessary for the narra-
tion of sentimental ction. This story of the two lovers is focused on the
mutual love between Ardanlier, son of Creos, and Liessa, daughter of the
Lord of Lira. This love is complicated by Yrena, who loves Ardanlier but is
rejected by him. According to the tale, Ardanlier and Liesa each forsake
their homes and their nations and, after wandering the fourth parts of the
world, reach the westernmost corner of the earth, Galicia, where they
build an underground palace, a private world for their love. In this physical
conceptualization of space, the author uses the topos of the locus amoenus,
but also transgresses it through the insertion of a topographical representa-
tion in which the idealized landscape is coupled with a landscape of aggres-
sion that preludes the tragic end of the story:
Que por marauillosa arte rrompieron vna esquiua rroca, e dentro de la qual obraron
vn secreto palacio, rrico y fuerte, bien obrado; y a la entrada, vn verde, fresco jardyn
de muy olorosas yeruas, lyndos, frutiferos rbores, donde solitario biuia. E siguiendo
el arte plazible de los caadores, andando por los tenebrosos valles en guarda del peli-
groso passo que vedaua a los caualleros saluajes, e muchas vezes con grand quexo
apremiados, entravan al soterrao palacio, a morir delante su bien quista seora.
By marvelous art they broke down a hard rock underneath which they built a secret
palace which was rich and strong and artfully built; before it, there was a green, fresh
grove with fragrant herbs and pleasant fruit trees, where[Ardanlier] lived in solitude.
And following the pleasant art of hunting, wandering in dark valleys guarding the
dangerous pathway that was forbidden to wild knights, and many times urged by
heavy anguish, they [wild animals] enter the subterranean palace to die in front of
their beloved lady.10
In the Estoria de dos amadores, then, lovein addition to its construction

as an aectis socially and politically portrayed, insofar as the lovers space
is also the space of separation and abandonment of Ardanliers social
responsibilities. This social responsibility will be the key to understanding
the tragic end of the relationship between Ardanlier and Liessa. Thus, amid
this wild landscapea topography which is in fact not at all dissimilar to
the framing forest landscapes of the Hall of Justice ceilingsCreos, father
of Ardanlier, will nd Liessa and murder her, which will in turn bring
about Ardanliers suicide, the pilgrimage of Yrena to Yria, and her decision
to become the priestess of a cult to the martyred lovers. A nal spatial
revolution is conveyed through the portrayal of Nature capable of trans-
forming the lovers paradise into a dystopic hell:
manante a la parte syniestra aquella nombrada fuente de los acores, donde las lindas
aves de rrapina, gauilanes, acores, melyones, falcones del generoso Ardanlier, acom-
paados de aquellas solytarias aves que en son de planto cantan los sensibles lays,
10
My translation from the Spanish original in Juan Rodrguez del Padrn. Siervo libre
de amor, ed. Antonio Prieto (Madrid: Castalia, 1986) (hereafter Siervo), 88.
despues de vesitadas dos vezes al dias las dos memoradas sepulturas, decendian tomar
el agua, segun fazer solian en vida del grand cacador quelas tanto amava; e cevandose
en la escura selua, guardauan las aves domesticas del secreto palacio, que despus
tornaron esquivas, silvestres, en guisa que de la Naya y delas arboredas de Miraores
sallen oy dia esparveres, acores gentyles y peregrynos, falcones, que se cevan en todas
rraleas, saluo en gallinas y gallos monteses, que algunos dizen faysanes, conociendolas
venir de aquellas que fueron criadas en el palacio encantado, en cuyas faldas, no
tocando al jardyn o verjel, pacian los coseres, portantes de Ardanlyer, despues de su
fallecimiento, e las lyndas hacaneas, palafrenes de las fallecidas Lyessa e Yrena y sus
duenas donzellas; que vinieron despues en tanta esquividat y braueza, que ninguno,
por muy esforcado, solo syn armas, osava pasar a los altos bosques donde andavan. En
testimonio de lo qual, oy dia se fallan cauallos saluajes de aquella raca en los montes de
Teayo, de Miranda y de Bujan, donde es la or de los monteros, ventores, sahuesos
de la pequea Francia, los cuales ayrman venir de la casta de los treze que quedaron
de Ardanlyer. Otros por lo contrario, dizen que los treze canes, vyendo fallyr el su
obedecido seor, cercaron de todas partes las dos tumbas rricas, donde jamas no los
pudieron partyr; e fallecidos del spiritu, los cuerpos no sensibles mudaronse en fynas
piedras, cada vno tornadose en su cantidat, vista y color, e tan propia gura
predatory birds, sparrow hawks, goshawks, falcons of the illustrious Ardanlier, together
with those lonely birds that sing as a planctus sad and aective lais, after visiting twice a
day the two famous tombs, went down to drink from the water owing on the left side
of that famous goshawk fountain, as they used to do when the illustrious hunter who
loved them so much was alive. And hunting down in the dark woods, they defended the
domestic birds that lived in the secret palace, until they became evasive and wild, to the
point that today Montagut Harriers, goshawks and Peregrine Falcons from la Naya and
Miraores attack and hunt all types of birds except Western Capercailles and Peregrine
Falcons, which some call pheasants, whom they recognized as having being bred at the
enchanted palace; in whose foothills (i.e., those of Naya and Miraores) without tres-
passing the grove or garden, Ardanliers steeds and the gentle ponies and palfreys of the
sadly deceased Liessa and Yrena and their damsels became so wild and brave that no one,
however great his endurance, would dare to pass unarmed through those high woods
where they lived. To bear witness to this, you can still nd today wild horses of that breed
in the Teayo Mountains, and in Miranda and Bujn, where the most splendid Galician
mountain dogs, hunting dogs, and bloodhounds can be found, which are said to come
directly form the original thirteen that survived Ardanlyer. Others, however, say that
these original thirteen dogs, upon seeing their lord dying, surrounded the two tombs
from which nobody could take them away. And once they died, their inert bodies became
rich and rened stones, each of them in a dierent quantity, quality and color.11
As the space of lovers is pierced by the inltration of a locus agrestis, narra-

tion develops through a spatial symbiosis of divine and pagan spaces, visi-
ble in the epitaph of the tomb of both lovers:
11
My translation, Siervo, 105-06.
EXEMPLO Y PERPETUA MEMBRANA,

CON GRAND DOLOR,
SEA A VOS, AMADORES,
LA CRUEL MUERTE DE LOS MUY LEALES
ARDANLIER Y LIES[S]A,
FALLECIDOS POR BIEN AMAR.
VERSOS DE LAS SEPULTURAS:
REYNANTE SATURNO EN LA MAYOR ESPERA,
MARES CON VENUS JUNTO EN LA SEGUNDA ZONA.
DECLINANTE ZODACO A LA PARTE HAUSTRAL;
COMBURO PASANDO EL PUNTO DE LIBRA;
EL SOL QUE TOCABA LA VISA DEL POLO.
CUYOS ENTEROS CUERPOS EN TESTIMONIO DE LAS OBRAS
PERSEVERAMOS LAS DOS RYCAS TUMBAS, FASTA EL
PAUOROSO DIA QUE A LOS GRANDES BRAMIDOS
DE LOS QUATRO ANIMALES DESPIERTEN
DEL GRAND SUEO, E SUS MUY PURIFICAS ANIMAS
POSEAN PERDURABLE FOLGANA.
LET THE CRUEL DEATH OF THOSE FAITHFUL ARDANLIER AND
LYESSA, WHO FOLLOWED GOOD LOVE, BE AN EXAMPLE AND
PAINFUL MEMORY TO ALL OF YOU LOVERS.
VERSES FOUND ON THE TOMBS:
AS SATURN GOVERNS THE LARGE SPHERE,
MARS WITH VENUS IN THE SECOND CIRCLE.
AS THE ZODIAC DECLINES TOWARDS THE AUSTRAL ZONE,
WITH COLURUS HAVING COLURUS LIBRA;
AS THE SUN TOUCHES THE URSA MINOR,
MAY THEIR BODIES, AS WITNESSES TO THEIR DEEDS, BE
FOREVER PRESERVED IN THESE TWO RICHLY ORNAMENTED
TOMBS UNTIL THE DREADFUL DAY ON WHICH, BY THE LOUD
HOWLINGS OF THE FOUR ANIMALS THEY, WILL AWAKEN
FROM THE GREAT DREAM, AND THEIR PURE SOULS WILL
ENJOY ETERNAL BLISS.12
This juxtaposition of landscapes and their interpretations creates a tension

which will ultimately be resolved through a negative interpretation of the
glorication of courtly love given that this latter, according to the narra-
tors understanding, only leads the lover to useless sacrice.13
12
My translation, Siervo, 102.
13
For the conation of human and divine registers, see Marina Brownlee, Failed Erot-
icism (Siervo Libre de Amor), The Severed Word: Ovids Heroides and the novela sentimen-
tal (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 89-105.
The narrative of the Siervo libre de amor is thus divided into two spatial
levels which never intersect. On the one hand, in the main narrative, the
allegorical representation referring to the narrators experience of love is
constructed out of rhetorical topoi of despair, recovery and salvation. On
the other, in the interpolated Estoria we nd a conscious problematization
of the spatial description that denes the larger narrative. This is achieved
through the conscious and deliberate transgression of literary topoirep-
resented by the spatial ambivalence of the presentation of both pagan and
divine registerswhich have, in eect, already been rendered problematic
through their identication with a mimetic geographical location in Gali-
cia. To put it dierently, the allegorical representation of the process of love
in the principal narrative provides a hermetic spatialization distinct from
the chivalric spatialization of the Estoria, whose relationship to the princi-
pal allegorical frame is explained by the exemplarity oered by Ardanlier as
a negative model of courtly love. In the Siervo, then, as suggested by Reg-
ula Rohland de Lanbehn, allegory is indeed central to the autobiographical
narrative experience. As I have argued, however, this narrative is also char-
acterized by a patent a tendency to open up onto other spaces (such as
those oered by the interpolated story of the two lovers), so long as these
do not aect the consistency of the larger allegorical frame. This observa-
tion, in turn, suggests several limitations to allegorys didactic possibilities
which are worth considering, and which can be related to the failed pos-
sibility of allegory to dene and contain loves experience.
The Crcel De Amor: Allegory and its Eacement

The Crcel de amor, at the other end of the sentimental ction spectrum,
presents a starkly dierent use of allegory. There, the narrative is initiated
by an auctor who, while traversing a deep valley in Sierra Morena on his
way back from the war in Granada, is interpellated by a Wild Man, who
leads a prisoner in chains.14 The return home, the war, the actual geogra-
phy, and the typical conceptualization of the wild surroundings all appear
to point to a historical representation. This realness, however, is some-
what challenged by the conventionally Arthurian representation of wilder-
ness that represents aggression, social rejection, the marvelous and the
14
See Simone Pinets article in this same volume for a nuanced interpretation of the wild
man in the ceilings for meditative purposes and as pretext for narration.
absence of law, as in the Estoria, discussed above. We soon encounter,

moreover, a very clear transgression of the readers expectations, given that
this real space is conated with allegorical space: the text itself points out
that the Wild Man is, in fact, the embodiment of the Desire that imprisons
lovers, thus representing courtly loves imprisonment in a particularly con-
crete fashion.15 This is the same motif, represented here with words rather
than with images, that appears in the Hall of Justice ceilings and is ana-
lyzed in several of the papers in this collection, and it points to an allego-
rization of loves ability to imprison emotionally. It is important to note,
however, that allegory in the Crcel de amor is more static than in the
Siervo and, in contrast to the Hall of Justice ceilings, it is made central
through an architectural design that painstakingly describes a castle/prison
of love, a rhetorical literary topos which is deployed here in order to con-
ceptualize the prison of the courtly lover:
y cuando ya la lumbre del da descubri los campos vi cerca de m, en lo ms alto de

la sierra, una torre de altura tan grande que me pareca llegar al cielo. Era hecha por tal
articio que de la estraeza della comenc a maravillarme. Y puesto al pie, aunque el
tiempo se me ofreca ms para temer que para notar, mir la novedad de su lavor y de
su edicio. El cimiento sobre que estava fundada era una piedra tan fuerte de su con-
dicin y tan clara de su natural cual nunca otra tal jams ava visto, sobre la cual esta-
van rmados cuatro pilares de un mrmol morado muy hermoso de mirar. Eran en
tanta manera altos, que me espantava cmo se podan sostener. Estava encima dellos
labrada una torre de tres esquinas, la ms fuerte que se puede contemplar; tena en
cada esquina, en lo alto della. Una imagen de nuestra umana hechura, de metal, pin-
tada cada una de su color: la una de leonado y la otra de negro y la otra de pardillo.
Tena cada una de ellas una cadena en la mano asida con mucha fuera. Vi ms encima
de la torre un chapitel sobrel cual estava un guila que tena el pico y las alas llenas de
claridad de unos rayos de lumbre que por dentro de la torre salan a ella.16
I saw close to me, on the highest point of the mountain range, a tower so high that I
thought it must reach to the heavens; and it was constructed with such artice that I
began to marvel at its wondrous strangeness. And when I arrived at the foot of it,
although it was a time more for fear than for curious observation, I inspected the
15
Barbara E. Kurtz points out that there is a reduplication between external and internal
allegory: [t]he allegory presents a double aspect: architectural exterior, the vague and
somewhat incomplete description of which is based on numerous objectications, and
interior scenes populated by a retinue of related personication (128). See her Diego de
San Pedros Crcel de amor and the Tradition of the Allegorical Edice, Journal of Hispanic
Philology 8 (1984), 123-138.
16
Diego de San Pedro. Crcel de amor. Arnalte y Lucenda. Sermn. Ed. Jos Francisco
Ruiz Casanova. (Madrid: Ctedra, 1995), 68.
novelty of its workmanship and its design. The foundation on which it stood was a
rock of so strong a substance and so transparent a quality that I never have seen another
such. Upon it rested four pillars of purple marble most beautiful to behold. They were
so high that I was amazed that they could stand upright; and on top of them was
constructed a three-cornered tower, the strongest that can be imagined. On every
corner, at the topmost point, there stood an image, fashioned in our human form, of
metal, each one painted a dierent color: one tawny, another black, and the third grey;
and each held very tightly in one hand a chain. I further noted on top of the tower a
pinnacle on which stood an eagle, whose beak and wings shone brightly in the rays of
light which reached them from within the tower.17
The allegorical meaning of this castle, however, is withheld from the auc-
tor: he clearly requires an explanation of the code embodied in its various
components, but this is available only to lovers. Thus, the spatial descrip-
tion of the prison is projected on two levels. One in literal, and is grasped
by the author, whereas the second, allegorical level, is only apprehended by
the auctor when the lover, Leriano, explains to him the correspondences
between architecture and morality:
Deves saber que aquella piedra sobre quien la prisin est fundada es mi fe, que deter-
min de sofrir el dolor de su pena, por bien de su mal. Los cuatro pilares que asientan
sobre ella son mi Entendimiento y mi Razn y mi Memoria y mi Voluntad. Los cuales
mand Amor parescer en su presencia antes que me sentenciase.18
You must know that the rock on which the prison stands is my constant love, which is
determined to endure the pain of this torment for the good that comes from this evil.
The four pillars which rest upon it are my Understanding, my Reason, my Memory and
my Will, whom Love summoned into his presence before passing sentence upon me.19
This prison of love, then, is at once an imagined physical space and an

emotional state of dependence produced by loves tyranny. Similarly, the
physical suering to which Leriano is subjected inside the tower is princi-
pally the objectication of his emotional suering, represented symboli-
cally by his physical punishment in this hell.
It is also important to observe that the allegorical space of suering also
functions in the Crcel de amor as an objectied, localized, physical, and
17
Diego de San Pedro. Prison of Love (1492) (together with the Continuation by Nico-
ls Nez (1496), ed. Keith Whinnom. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1979)
(hereafter Prison), 6.
18
Siervo, 73.
19
Prison, 9.
geographically xed space in Sierra Morenait lies at one days distance

from the kingdom of Macedonia, which in turn is very distant (muy alon-
gado) from Spain. In this disparate geography, Spain, whose military might
and wonder is glimpsed through the comments made by Laureola, Leri-
anos beloved, is geographically positioned beside Macedonia, which is
simultaneously and contradictorily the chivalric space of civilization, soci-
ety, politics and love, and also of treason, political conict, injustice and
war. It is, however, important to note that the relationship between the
rst Madceonia, an anguished allegorical space of suering, and the sec-
ond, chivalric one, is facilitated by an epistolary exchange which serves not
only as the principle device through which narration unfolds, but also as a
tool with which to mediate subjectivity. The relation between these two
spaces is resolved through the military conquest and colonization of the
allegorical space, bringing about, in turn, the disintegration of the alle-
gorical conceptualization once Laureola decides to sympathize with Leri-
anos woes. Ironically, the destruction of the allegorical space does not
produce a mimetic change at the psychological level, for Leriano will still
undergo the psychological suering resulting from his unrequited love for
Laureola: once the social constructions and the epistolary discourse fail, he
in fact dies following his own anguished (and literal) ingestion of Laureo-
lass letters, thus implying, symbolically, the internalization, subjectiviza-
tion or death of courtly love in an alien world where love is contextualized
as social conict.20
The eacement of allegory as a container capable of eectively chan-
neling loves subjectivity clearly dierentiates the Crcel from the Siervo.
We should not forget, however, that once it disappears, allegory leaves
behind traces, echoes of the ironic qualities of many of the images which a
given narrative has previously elaborated at the allegorical level. For exam-
ple, Laureola is now physically imprisoned in a tower from which she is
freed by a military tactic that recalls the attack with which the allegorical
prison was overcome. Diego de San Pedro, therefore, by deliberately
reinterpreting the tower and thus simultaneously allowing both a literal
reading by the auctor and an allegorical reading by Leriano, adopts an
20
For the interpretation of this episode as a biblical subtext see Joseph Chorpenin,
Lerianos consumption of Laureolas Letters in the Crcel de Amor, Modern Languages
Notes 95 (1980), 442-445. For a psychoanalytical interpretation see Michael Gerli, Leri-
ano and Lacan: The Mythological and Psychoanalytical Underpinnings of Lerianos Last
Drink, La cornica 29 (2000), 113-128.
ironic position toward allegory itself, casting doubt upon the inherent ref-
erentiality of the allegorical symbol, reinterpreting the tower. Thus, a spa-
tial coexistence between the real and the allegorical is achieved that clearly
distinguishes Crcel from Siervo, and attacks the principle of allegorical
dierentiation that was particularly acute in Siervo. Allegory is dissolved in
the chivalric space, but leaves behind traces that allow the reinterpretation
of the literal in a symbolic manner.
It is this dissolution of allegory from the narrative structure that prob-
lematizes some of the otherwise brilliant insights in Sol Miguel-Prendes
recent article.21 In her analysis, she points out how Crcel de amor is con-
nected to a new prayer book mentality, and is, thus, connected to private
modes of reading based in the strengthening of the craft of contemplation
through the use of visual recollections. While I fully accept the relation of
the Crcel de amor to new modes of religious meditation, which she char-
acterizes as a religious fervor that prepares the way for the inception of
the devotio moderna.22 I nd her underlying assertion of the centrality of
the initial allegory and its role in structuring the central contemplative
reading mode problematic. It is true, as Miguel-Prendes proposes, that
allegorys ekphrasis functions as a cognitive image crafted by San Pedro to
recall other texts on which to build the narration of Leriano and Laureolas
unhappy love aair.23 On the other hand, however, the authority sought
by allegorys attempt to create exemplarity on behalf of Leriano and
Laureola is compromised by its further disintegration. In my opinion,
rather than through the deployment of imagined allegory, authority is
achieved through a subsequent emphasis on Christological models, alien
to allegory itself.
Conclusion: Weaving Textual and Iconographic Allegorical Motifs

The textual allegorization studied in the two texts discussed in this essay
was not, of course, exclusive to narrative ction of the fteenth century.
Indeed, the cases examined here are examples of re-elaborations of courtly
models that were reclaimed, numerous times within a variety of genres.
What it is suggestive in the context of the present volume is that the visual
21
Sol Miguel-Prendes, Reimagining Diego de San Pedros Readers at Work: Crcel de
amor, La Cornica 32:2 (2004), 7-44.
22
Sol Miguel-Prendes, Reimagining, 37.
23
Sol Miguel-Prendes, Reimagining, 22.
presentation of what we might term an iconography of courtly love in

the painted ceilings of the Alhambra appears to make use of allegory in
ways that oer interesting similarities the uses made of the same device
in sentimental ction. It is, nonetheless, also important to underline the
dierences of the uses of allegory at brought together above two of the
chambers located at the back of the Alhambras Hall of Justice. There,
allegorical motifs such as the garden of love, the hunting scenes, or the
Wild Man are assembled within the context of other meta-registers of
courtly love at whose center we nd such topoi as the Ladys beauty and
the battle between courtly nobility and the baser physical instincts. In the
Hall of Justice, this combination of broader courtly registers and specic
motifs is deployed in order to emphasize the transcendence of love, embod-
ying notions of beatitude and restraint that could also be fruitfully applied
to the particular political context of the court which produced them. Such
a conception exists in sharp contrast to the uses made of allegory in struc-
turing the experience of love in the two narratives of sentimental ction
examined here. The Siervo does indeed characterize allegory as a privileged
space within which to conceptualize loves subjectivity and internal conict,
but it ultimately resorts to the separation of allegory from courtly love and
gives clear evidence of allegorys rhetorical limitations. Sentimental space is
an allegorical space constructed according to Dantesque, Virgilian and
penitential models, through a rigorous appropriation of the spatial topoi
that trace the journey from desperation to salvation. We should not forget,
however, that there is an imposition of a non-allegorical space, the Estoria
de los leales amadores, that plays an important role in tracing the change I
have charted in these pages, with consequences not only for ction, but for
the visual arts as well. It is particularly important to recall the intrusion of
this other space that oers, in my opinion, a way of attacking the narrative
structure that will, eventually, subvert the very value of allegory.
Indeed, only half a century later, we nd that this value is already greatly
diminished. In the Crcel de amor, allegory is marginalized and fossilized,
giving way to more active forms of spatialization and narration that brings
new ideas of a less static love and in which new channels of subjective
expression have been opened. As has been demonstrated, allegory, now
suocated by chivalric literature, can no longer operate in the Crcel, where
it is left with no alternative but to dissolve into ironical traces that, none-
theless, leave their imprint on the surface of chivalric narration. We should
also remember that this marginalization is mainly achieved through the
import of epistolary discourse that colonizes the space of subjectivity
granted before to allegory. General allegorization gives way to a mediated

personal subjectivity that is the basis of further meditation. The Siervo, I
believe, uses this epistolary discourse as a serious tool of subjective intro-
spection in order to eect an intellectual (albeit qualied) rejection of
courtly love. The Crcel, on the other hand, employs it together with the
powerful weapon of humor. This explains Diego de San Pedros clever use
of architectural allegory as an eventually ineective clich within chivalric
discourse, before decreeing its nal evaporation and dissemination in the
chivalric space.
These observations I have oered here, though focused on narrative,
echo changes and re-articulations that can be seen in the painted ceilings
of the Alhambra, many of which are explored in other essays in this collec-
tion. For, in both painting and narrative ction, allegory weaves together
dierent traditions of lovesome courtly and some otherwiseand oers
diering evaluations of the validity of each. Likewise, each medium con-
tinually re-evaluates the role of allegory in the interpretation of love tradi-
tions and in the cultural codes they articulate. The ceilings show an
allegorical re-appropriation of selected motifs of chivalric iconography
whose principle purpose is to establish Nasrid authority over the values of
courtly love and their use for meditative and political purposes, while
simultaneously urging viewers to adopt the strategies of restraint and jus-
tice in both political and romantic arenas. The development of allegory in
the sentimental tradition, on the other hand, appears to be less condent
indeed, the sentimental tradition almost appears bent on allegorys mar-
ginalization and eventual destruction. I suggest here that this is because the
social and cultural origins of allegory and courtly love have a value and
authority that make them still viable and attractive (and thus open to mor-
alizing reinterpretation) in a conicted fourteenth century Nasrid court,
whereas by the time of the Crcel s production, this validity has been called
into question. In the fourteenth-century Hall of Justice, allegory is
employed to relocate this court in a social situation of increasing Christian
political domination, serving eectively as a tool for cultural adaptation, as
well as in the articulation of transcendent values of aristocratic love and
government. By mid-fteenth century, however, which witnesses the emer-
gence in Castile of a more practical mentality that collides with courtly
allegory and that will eventually conquer sentimental ction, invalidating
both courtly love and allegory, this is no longer the case. Indeed, it is
allegory itself, with its implacable deferment of meanings, which points to
the instability existing at the very aristocratic core of courtly love, thus
rendering itself completely dispensable by the end of that same century.

This abandonment, I suggest, originated in a limited use of the allegorical
frame, which I signaled at the very origins of the literary genre of senti-
mental ction. It is, moreover, this initial limitation which will serve as the
basis for the later invalidation of allegory, and its partial replacement by
epistolary modes. While the Siervo endeavors to accommodate the author-
ity embedded in love allegories that is still visible in the paintings, and uses
a dignied fabula, in the Crcel the architectural allegory fails and disap-
pears, substituted by new introspective models of meditation that announce
a more modern sensibility and the conguration of new, culturally adapted,
forms of subjectivity.24
24
For a discussion on how individualism and religious changes at the end of the Middle
Ages aected allegory see Gay Cliord, The Transformations of Allegory. London and Bos-
ton: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974, especially 118-29.
Medieval
Encounters
Book Reviews
Daniel Frank, Search Scripture Well. Karaite Exegetes and the Origins of the
Jewish Bible Commentary in the Islamic East, Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2004,
374 + xvi pp.
Almost no educated Jew today would consider sitting down and reading
the Bible without some sort of commentary, whether it is a modern, criti-
cal approach to the text or a classical medieval commentary such as the
semi-midrashic one of Rashi (1040-1105); the mostly literal one of Abra-
ham ibn Ezra (1089-1164) or the mystically informed one of Nahmanides
(1194-1270). Rashis commentaries, mediating the rabbinic tradition to
the medieval (and now modern) reader of the biblical text, have become
canonical and are often thought of as integral parts of the original. Yet, the
idea of a running commentary on the Bible is not necessarily self-evident,
and the rabbis of the Talmud did not employ that form as a way of present-
ing their exegesis of the sacred text.
Jewish biblical commentaries were adopted as a legitimate genre only a
little over a thousand years ago, to a great extent under the inuence of
Islam, and its commentaries on the Quran. The early biblical commentar-
ies, composed mainly in the land of Israel and Iraq, were generally written
in Judaeo-Arabic, and only some of them are available today in printed
editions and translations to Hebrew or other languages. Although the
chief Judeao-Arabic exegete among Rabbanite Jews was Rav Saadia Gaon
(882-942), most biblical commentators of the period were Saadias rivals,
the Karaites, who presented a scripturalist challenge to Rabbinic Judaism.
It is to early Karaite biblical commentaries, especially those of the principal
Karaite exegete, Yefet (Japheth) ben Eli (Abu l-Hasan b. Ali al-Basri, active
ca. 960-1005), that Daniel Franks excellent book is devoted.
Although Karaites were not strict scripturalists, they did put a premium
on the biblical text, and its correct interpretation has often been at the base
of internal Rabbanite-Karaite polemics. Anan ben David, the eighth-
century savant who has traditionally been seen as the founder of Karaism
(although today we know that his group, the Ananites, became aliated
[256] 408 Book Reviews / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 407-416
with Karaism only long after Anans death) is often credited with the com-
mand to read the Scriptures closely, as exemplied by his putative injunc-
tion which provided the title of this book: Search Scripture well, and do
not rely upon my opinion. Frank begins his investigation of Karaite exe-
gesis with an analysis of this problematic slogan and demonstrates how it
reected early Karaite sensibilities even if it was not authored by Anan
himself. His introduction also serves to present the ninth- and tenth-
century Karaite intellectuals, in addition to Yefet, whose study of the bibli-
cal text, and their commentaries upon it, shaped Jewish biblical exegesis in
subsequent generations. These worthies are well known to students of
Karaism, but often are ignored by other researchers of Judaism.
The heart of Franks book is a series of studies on specic exegetical sub-
jects: legal derivation, as exemplied by the laws of unclean birds and the
injunction to wear fringes on clothes (chapter two); interpretation of scrip-
tural dreams (chapter three); exegesis of Song of Songs (chapter four); the
liturgy of the early Karaites, which was almost entirely based on scriptural
passages (chapter ve); and the use of exegesis in inter-religious polemic
(chapter six). This last chapter illustrates well the role of exegesis in medieval
religious encounters. In the environment in which the Karaite exegetes
worked, members of the three major religions, Islam, Christianity and Juda-
ism, all used proof texts from the Hebrew Bible as a source of conrmation
of the correctness of their own beliefs and the mistaken doctrines of the
rival religionists. Yefet included much polemical material in his commen-
tary on the more prominent controversial verses, and Frank demonstrates
the context and the methodology of Yefets explanations which often go far
beyond simple exposition de texte. Comparative, inter-religious polemic was
thus alive and well in late tenth-century Land of Israel biblical exegesis.
The topics chosen for extensive discussion provide a useful framework
for understanding the Karaite exegetical enterprise, as well as the dierence
in approach between Karaism and Rabbanism. In each chapter, Frank lays
out the background of the discussion; shows the unique contribution of
Yefet ben Eli to the subject, while not ignoring other Karaite exegetes of
the period; and provides critical editions of pertinent texts, along with
translations, in order to illustrate his conclusions. Additional Judeao-
Arabic texts are edited in a separate section at the end of the book. Since
Karaite studies have been hampered by the lack of available sources, espe-
cially those which had been inaccessible for years in the libraries of the
former Soviet Union, these editions, as short and fragmentary as they are,
are a welcome contribution.
Book Reviews / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 407-416 409 [257]
The epilogue concerning the origins of Jewish Bible commentary in the

Islamic east will probably be the most signicant aspect of the book for the
general student of Judaism, who often ignores the contribution of Karaism
to Jewish history, literature and culture. In light of the criticism of Karaism
found in the works of rabbanite Spanish exegetes, such as Ibn Ezra, it is often
forgotten that these same authors were beholden to the Karaites for a number
of features of their own biblical commentaries. Ibn Ezra himself cited Yefet
and other Karaite authors approvingly despite his overt and covert polemics
against Karaite interpretations, especially those of legal prescriptions. Frank
identies ve characteristics of the Spanish Rabbanite exegetical school
which he attributes to the early Karaite models: (1) exegetical program;
(2) authorial voice; (3) programmatic introduction; (4) systematic exposi-
tion; and (5) contextual-rationalistic outlook. Frank argues that in the
Islamic east, Karaites moved biblical exegesis to center stage, abandoning the
midrashic method and championing philology. This development had a last-
ing eect on almost all subsequent Jewish biblical exegesis.
As a collection mainly of discrete studies in Karaite exegesis, some of
which had appeared in other contexts, Daniel Franks Search Scripture Well
is not a systematic history of Karaite biblical commentary in the Islamic
east. Yet, it contributes greatly to a richer understanding of the origins of
Jewish biblical exegesis in general. The copious insights, the edited texts,
the contextualization of the commentaries, and the presentation of new
understandings all make this book a must read for any serious student of
Jewish exegesis while providing students of other medieval religious tradi-
tions much useful information.
Daniel J. Lasker
Ben-Gurion University
Beer Sheva, Israel
Review of Elliott Horowitz: Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish
Violence. Princeton, 2006. 340 + xiv pp. $37.95 (cloth)
Elliott Horowitz, a professor of Jewish History at Bar-Ilan University in

Israel, has written extensively on Jewish social, cultural and intellectual
history from an original, interdisciplinary, and unapologetic perspective.
In an important article published in 1989, Horowitz analyzed early mod-
ern Jews customs on the eve of circumcisions, exploring what he called the
sacralization of popular religious rituals. That same year, another of his
pieces cleverly connected the spread of nocturnal pietistic practices in early
modern Venice and Safed with the increased availability of coee and
the spread of venues that served it. Throughout his scholarly oeuvre,
Horowitz has specialized in drawing unexpected parallels between Jewish
and Christian religious life, and has consistently highlighted episodes of
cultural cross-pollination that other scholars either missed or, worse, delib-
erately elided.
Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence ts squarely into
this pattern. A courageous book that has won as many detractors as cham-
pions, Horowitzs work narrates a history of Jewish anti-Christian violence
stretching from late antiquity to the present day, showing how Jews were
often perpetrators as well as victims of inter-religious hostility. The book
aims to counter the image of the Jew as a defenseless victim of Christian
state policy and mob violence through the ages, which has come to domi-
nate historiography of the Jews.
The book is divided into two parts. Part One, entitled Biblical Lega-
cies, examines various exegetical and hermeneutic perspectives on the
biblical book of Esther ranging from second-century Aramaic paraphrases
(targumim) to twentieth- and early twenty-rst-century commentaries.
After a surprisingly personal and confessional introduction, successive
chapters treat eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century, mostly English,
analyses of Esther; divergent critical views of Esther and Vashti, the pair of
queens (46) of the ancient tale; Mordechais refusal to bow before King
Ahasuerus and its political, moral, and practical implications across the cen-
turies; Haman as the incarnation of evil and the subsequent eorts of post-
biblical scholars to interpret (artistically and verbally) his nal suering at
the hands of victorious and vindicated Jews; the story of Amalek, and his
attack on fatigued Jews eeing Egyptian servitude recounted in Exodus 17
and Deuteronomy 25, and the typological readings Jews and Christians
have performed on the Bible in medieval and modern times, conating
modern-day anti-Semites such as Hitler with Amalek. As Part One pro-

ceeds, Horowitzs narrative picks up speed and condence, moving (in
reverse chronological order) from Victorian biblical critics to medieval
Jewish exegetes.
Part Two shifts focus away from an analysis of biblical readings of the
book of Esther and towards an historical treatment of Jewish violence.
Chapter Six, The Fascination of the Abomination, studies Jewish dese-
cration of the cross and host in medieval and modern Europe, and posits
that these acts carried sexual connotations for pre-modern Jews. Chapters
Seven and Eight scrutinize, respectively, Christian views of innate Jewish
passivity and antipathy to violence and Jewish historians own treatments
of Jewish aggressiveness around the time of the Purim festival. Chapter
Nine connects the occasionally overlapping celebrations of Purim and
Christian Carnival with the violence that often ensued. Chapter Ten inves-
tigates traditions of local Purims, whereby Jewish communities marked
the passing of religious danger by typologically conating events of their
own lifetimes with Mordecai and Esthers triumph over Haman and his
genocidal ambitions. Curiously, the book lacks a conclusion; the reader is
implicitly asked to synthesize the books content and to draw his or her
own conclusions from the works amply-documented chapters.
Reckless Rites rests on a solid and substantial foundation of primary
sources and secondary scholarship. Reading Horowitzs examples of Jewish
violence toward Christians and Muslims, from Jews complicity in a mas-
sacre of Christians during the seventh-century Persian conquest of Pales-
tine to Baruch Goldsteins slaying of twenty-nine Palestinians in Hebron
during Purim of 1994, one gets the feeling that the author is merely sam-
pling, not exhausting, his sizeable supply of historical data. Beyond his
manifest and at times playful display of erudition (the author has the
uncanny ability to mention, in the midst of a single paragraph, a memoir
of Lyndon Johnsons presidency alongside Rabbi Solomon ben Samsons
1096 Crusade Chronicle (165)) Professor Horowitz challenges renowned
historians. An example of this is Horowitzs treatment of Cecil Roths The
Jews of Medieval Oxford (1951). Horowitz believes that Roth, in his discus-
sion of a Jew who trampled a processional cross in Oxford on Ascension
Day, 1286, excused the Jews behavior by labeling him a demented icono-
clast. Horowitz then asks could only a demented Jew have intentionally
seized and destroyed a processional cross in thirteenth-century Europe?
(150). Acknowledging that in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust
Roths apologetic stance was understandable, Horowitz nonetheless states
that a more open-minded approach is clearly called for in evaluating

historical evidence.
It is precisely this open-minded approach that is the chief strength of
Reckless Rites. Horowitz shows that twentieth-century Jewish historiogra-
phy, especially that written in the euphoria following the Six Day War of
1967, could be baldly apologetic, often ignoring inconvenient evidence
and turning to dubious sources to exculpate Jews from responsibility for
their violent acts. Horowitzs work scrupulously avoids this sort of schol-
arly dishonesty. Bold, daring, and thought-provoking at the very least,
Reckless Rites deserves to be read and debated by scholars working in a
variety of elds, from history to anthropology to religion.
Andrew Berns
University of Pennsylvania
Klein, Elka. Jews, Christian Society, and Royal Power in Medieval Barcelona
History, Languages, and Cultures of the Spanish and Portuguese Worlds.
Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 2006. ISBN-13: 978-
0-472-11522-8; ISBN-10 0-472-11522-7. xxi+311 pp., 12 gures.
In Jews, Christian Society, and Royal Power in Medieval Barcelona, Elka

Klein sets out not only to write a new history of this critical period in the
life of a major Jewish community, but also to review and revise what has
become the established view of the citys call ( Jewish quarter/community).
As the author remarks in the introductory rst chapter, Yitzhak Baers
monumental History of the Jews of Christian Spain of 1961 laid the founda-
tions for subsequent studies of Jewish Iberia and has exercised a conceptual
inuence on later historians, which is in need of reappraisal. Baers charac-
terization of the Jews of Iberia as dominated by a rabbinical elite which
endeavored to preserve the community by protecting it from assimilation-
ist threats has been too readily accepted. On the other hand, Klein points
out, the debates and discussions relating to Americo Castros notion of
convivencia have both illuminated and obscured the nature of Sephardic
society and its place in the medieval Iberian world. Up to this point, for
the Crown of Aragon, revision has focused on the post-1250 periodthe
Golden Age of Aragonese Jewrya time by which the Barcelona com-
munity had established a special rapport with James I, and after which
there is abundant archival documentation at the disposal of historians.
Instead, Klein focuses on the more challenging earlier era, with the ulti-
mate purpose of dispelling long-held assumptions regarding the origins of
Jewish Barcelona, its internal life, its relation to the Christian society
within which it lived and the count-kings who ruled over it, and the evolv-
ing character of the community over time. Sources are few for this early
period, and the linguistic, technical and intellectual demands are signicant
on the historian determined to undertake such a task.
The second chapter, The Community in Theory and Practice, begins
with an analysis of an early twelfth-century document formulary by Judah
Bartzeloni (of Barcelona). Careful reading of this and other early sources
reveals a community with a loose, ad hoc structure, and one to which the
Christian rulers were largely indierenta state which engendered what
Klein refers to throughout the book as autonomy by default. Nevertheless,
from the 1080s onwards signs point towards the emergence of a Jewish
elite, as certain members of the community began to style themselves as
nesiim and nedivimdesignations which reect some sort of aristocratic
status. This group is the focus of Chapter Three, The Founding of an

Elite. Yet, rather than the hereditary governing clique which scholars have
assumed the nesiim to have comprised, Klein sees in these individuals an
informal economic elite, one which closely resembled contemporary
Christian probi homines both in their diverse commercial activities and
their lack of formal authority and group adhesion.
Benjamin of Tudelas late twelfth-century travelogue provides the point
of departure for the fourth chapter, Jewish Leaders and their Kings, 1160-
1205. It was in this period that royal and municipal law codes were
becoming increasingly elaborate, a by-product of which was an ever more
detailed denition of community. As the default subject became described
more clearly on terms of Christian identity, a more precise denition of
non-Christian communities was demanded as a consequence. As this took
place, certain leading Jewish families of the city, such as the Benevist and
ibn Hasdai, emerged simultaneously as royal functionaries and authority
gures in the Jewish community. With their inuence at court, members
of the nesiim families had come to dominate the Barcelona community by
the 1200s, but within two generations their sense of entitlement would
provoke a reaction on the part of their own subjects.
What resulted was little less than a rebellion, when a certain Samuel
b. Benevistwho represented the increasingly energetic and prosperous
and yet under-represented middle class of the communitydecided to
take on the power of the now entrenched nesiim faction, as represented by
the nasi and royal baili, Makhir b. Sheshet. The arena for this conict was
none other than the Barcelona synagogue, which was at once an organiza-
tional microcosm of local Jewish society and a physical manifestation of
the communitys complex religious, political and economic power struc-
ture. As Benevist and his party rode roughshod over the traditions of
the temple as a means of expressing their frustrating marginalization,
Makhir brought his considerable inuence to bear on the rebels, calling on
allies among the royal family, Christian administrators, and the prestigious
rabbinate of Languedoc to censure and punish them. Chapter Five,
Conict in the Community, 1205-30, shows that Makhirs eventual
victory was Pyrrhic.
The rebels moment would come in the fourth decade of the thirteenth
century. In The Overthrow of the Nesiim, 1230-1241, Klein rejects
Baers modern liberal interpretation of the rebellion. The ideology which
the rebels drew on was not democratic, she holds; rather, it was Maimo-
nides revolutionary rationalism, the advocates of which, including the
great rabbi of Girona, Nachmanides, construed as undermining the aristo-

crats claim to hereditary authority. This struggle marked a decisive stage in
the development of the community: it was the time when James I was
working to actively dene the internal and external function of the com-
munity, and when the rebel partyincluding Nachmanides own family
displaced the nesiim both in court circles and their own community.
It is after 1241 that we see the Jews taking on a formalized corporate
identity in Jamess kingdom. Thus, Chapter Seven, Forging a New Rela-
tionship: The Jews and the King, investigates the shift from autonomy by
default to autonomy by design. And while the design and impetus in
legal and communal reform was directed by the king to serve his own scal
and political interests, it was not detrimental to the Jews as a community.
Rather, it was what reinforced their institutional identity and internal
autonomy. As was the case in the early period, however, Klein shows that
the kings policies towards the Jews were driven by essentially the same
concerns as his policies towards Christian municipalitiesthe needs for
revenue and creditand that legal and institutional privileges extended
towards his common subjects of either faith were intended to maximize
his nancial position. Contrary to Baers assertion, Jewish autonomy
resulted not from disengagement with the royal program, but rather from
engagement.
Indeed, it is only at this point of engagement that wealthy Jews were put
in a position where they could enrich themselves as licensees of royal
monopolies, engage in large scale credit to the Crown, and launch them-
selves into large-scale international commerce. And yet, they did notas
has often been assumedengage in these activities exclusively, in isolation,
or in competition with Christian interests. At this stage, professional Jew-
ish creditors were few, and collaboration and partnership with Christian
actors was frequent in scal, commercial and speculative ventures. And,
thus, a broad new Jewish economic elite coalesced, one which consisted of
a dozen or so families who built alliances and mergers through marriage,
lending and partnerships. It was an elite whose fortunes were tied to the
royal power structure, and yet whose inuence did not depend on the
formal authority bestowed by hereditary title or prestige. It was their
engagement with Christian society that sustained them, and by extension,
their communities.
The books short concluding section recapitulates the themes that have
formed the focus of the preceding paragraphs, underlining the authors
contentions that the communal denition and solidarity to which both
Jews and Christians aspired actually facilitated productive engagement,

and that this in turn insulated Jews from the chauvinistic currents which
had taken a such a toll on their coreligionists north of the Pyrenees. She
rightly points out that, while recent historians have wrestled to understand
the ugliness of medieval anti-Judaism, what is far more important and
more interesting is the quiet substratum of daily life (p. 196). The book
concludes with a series of genealogical tables of the citys leading Jewish
families and the communitys major oce holders through the thirteenth
century.
Kleins study is compact and economical and yet addresses a whole range
of themes through a variety of methodologies. Most impressive is her use
of the archival material, through which she tracks down and reconstructs
the lives, families and careers of local Jewish administratorsa group
which hardly registers on the historical radar screen. The process which she
describes (the shift from autonomy by default to autonomy by design) is
not only convincingly proved in the case of the Jews of Barcelona, but
clearly has applications to other communities in other places and times.
Her description of Jewish-Christian relations in this period resonates with
the recent work of other revisionist historians of the Crown of Aragon,
such as Mark Meyerson, and expresses the same dynamic of communal
inter-relations which the present reviewer has characterized as convenien-
cia. In Kleins words stability derived from cross-confessional relationships:
Webs of individual relationships meant that the two communities [Jews
and Christians] as a wholeor at least their eliteshad a vested interest in
each others well-being (p. 190).
In sum, Jews, Christian Society, and Royal Power in Medieval Barcelona is
a well-written and important book; one which signicantly revises our
understanding of the pre-Golden Era Jewish community of Barcelona and
which has implications for the study of intra- and inter-communal rela-
tionships which go far beyond Iberia in the thirteenth century.
Having reviewed such a carefully researched and skillfully executed rst
book, the reviewer might express the optimistic expectation that this sig-
naled the beginning of a long and fruitful scholarly career. Sadly, this can-
not be the case. Elka Klein tragically succumbed to cancer before this book
was published. Therefore, it stands in testament, along with her other arti-
cles and translations, including an earlier collection of Jewish wills, to a
potential which will never be fully realized, and a loss for historians and all
of those interested in understanding the complexities of ethno-religious
identity and its role in human history.
COLOUR ILLUSTRATIONS
Ill. 1: Alhambra, Palace of the Lions, Hall of Justice, central ceiling, late
14th c. After Jess Bermdez Pareja, Pinturas sobre piel en la Alhambra de
Granada (Granada: Patronato de la Alhambra y el Generalife, 1987).
14th c., detail. After Jess Bermdez Pareja, Pinturas sobre piel en la
Alhambra de Granada (Granada: Patronato de la Alhambra y el Generalife,
1987).
1987).
1987).
1987).
Ill. 6: Alhambra, Palace of the Lions, Hall of Justice, northern ceiling, late
14th c., detail, Lovers beside a Fountain. After Jess Bermdez Pareja,
Pinturas sobre piel en la Alhambra de Granada (Granada: Patronato de la
Alhambra y el Generalife, 1987).
14th c., detail, Palace, noble occupants, and fountain. After Jess Berm-
dez Pareja, Pinturas sobre piel en la Alhambra de Granada (Granada: Patr-
onato de la Alhambra y el Generalife, 1987).
14th c., detail, Muslim nobles present hunting tribute to the Lady. After
Jess Bermdez Pareja, Pinturas sobre piel en la Alhambra de Granada
(Granada: Patronato de la Alhambra y el Generalife, 1987).
Ill. 10: Alhambra, Palace of the Lions, Hall of Justice, northern ceiling,
late 14th c., detail, pages hunting; ora and fauna of the garden. After
Jess Bermdez Pareja, Pinturas sobre piel en la Alhambra de Granada
late 14th c., detail, hunting and tribute scene. After Jess Bermdez Pareja,
late 14th c., detail, hunting and tribute scene. After Jess Bermdez Pareja,
Ill. 13: Alhambra, Palace of the Lions, Hall of Justice, southern ceiling, late
Ill. 14: Alhambra, Palace of the Lions, Hall of Justice, southern ceiling,
late 14th c., detail, game of chess. After Jess Bermdez Pareja, Pinturas
sobre piel en la Alhambra de Granada (Granada: Patronato de la Alhambra
y el Generalife, 1987).
late 14th c., detail, Battle between Knight and Wild Man; Battle between
Christian and Muslim; Lady with a Lion on a Leash; a Lady and her maid
observe from a castle. After Jess Bermdez Pareja, Pinturas sobre piel en
la Alhambra de Granada (Granada: Patronato de la Alhambra y el Gener-
alife, 1987).
late 14th c., detail, hunting scene; Battle between Knight and Wild Man.
After Jess Bermdez Pareja, Pinturas sobre piel en la Alhambra de Granada
late 14th c., detail, hunting scene; Battle between Christian and Muslim.
After Jess Bermdez Pareja, Pinturas sobre piel en la Alhambra de Granada
late 14th c., detail, Christian speared by Muslim adversary. After Jess
Bermdez Pareja, Pinturas sobre piel en la Alhambra de Granada (Granada:
Patronato de la Alhambra y el Generalife, 1987).
late 14th c., detail, hunting scene; a Lady and her maid observe the two
battles from a castle. After Jess Bermdez Pareja, Pinturas sobre piel en
la Alhambra de Granada (Granada: Patronato de la Alhambra y el Gener-
alife, 1987).
Medieval
Encounters
Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) i-iv www.brill.nl/me
INDEX
Abd al-Malik 135, 149 Blancaor 17, 18, 20, 27, 28-34, 36,
Ibn al-Ahmar (see Muhammad I) 37, 236
Abu Abd Allah ibn Juzayy al-Kalbi 52 Blancheeur 27, 30
Abu l-Hasan Ali (Muley Hacn) 58, 65 Blanche of Bourbon 227, 228
Abu Salim 48 Boabdil 65
Alarcn 64 Boccaccio 21
Albarracn 57 The Book of the Beasts (Llibre de les
Alcaiz: 14, 15, 69, 73, 84, 95-97, 108, bsties), Ramon Llull 156, 157, 184
112, 113 The Book of the Gentile and the Three
Alczar of Seville 47 Wise Men (Llibre del gentil e dels tres
Alfonso V of Aragn 200 savis), Ramon Llull 183-185, 187,
Alfonso VI of Castile 137 188
Alfonso VII of Castile 141 Bridge of Swords 14
Alfonso X 16, 18, 44, 131, 144 Building blocks 21
Alfonso XI of Castile 23, 55, 58, 59, 60, Burgos 60, 145
62, 64, 67, 69, 78, 84, 85, 86-92, 99,
145, 146 Calatrava, Order of 14
Aljafera 199 Maestre de 15
allegory 222, 228, 229, 236-252 caladrius 176-178, 181
Almohads 127 Calila e Dimna (Kalila wa Dimna) 156,
Appropriation 76, 77, 89, 90, 94 157, 172, 175, 184
Arabic 18, 19, 27, 41 Cantigas de Santa Maria 131-135, 150
Arabic origins 17, 18 Crcel de Amor 238, 245-249, 250
Aragn 57, 127, 128 Carmona 64
Ardanlier 241-245 Carlos Mainete 17
Arthur 12 Carolingian Cycle 16, 17
Arthurian 13-15, 44 Castejon, Villa of Soto El Ramalete 135,
attabi fabrics 212 136
Castile 14-17, 20, 23, 40, 44, 51, 57,
Babylon 30 58, 61, 65, 122, 124, 126-129, 132,
King of Babylon 29-35, 37, 43 135, 144-150
beaver 163-166, 181 Castilian(s) 12, 14-18, 21, 22, 26, 28-
bee 167-170, 175, 176, 181 30, 36, 38, 40, 41, 43, 44, 46
bestiaries 155-166, 176, 178 Catalina of Lancaster 63
The Bestiary of Love (Le Bestiaire Charlemagne 17, 18
damour), Richard of Fournival 155, Chivalry 67, 68, 73, 83-95, 97-104,
162, 165, 166, 176, 178 106-108, 217, 221, 222, 224, 227, 229,
Betanzos 144 231, 233, 235
ii Index / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) i-iv
Amads 224, 227-229; Quijote 224, forests 151, 182-188

228; Tristan 220, 224, 225, 228 Frocin 38
Centcelles 235 Fountain, fountains 13, 19, 22-28, 37,
Chess 19, 25-28, 38, 39 38
Chronicle of King Pedro 129, 130 Fountain of Youth 13
Claris 23
Coca 51 Gandifer 31, 33-35
Constantinople 235 Garden, gardens 19, 23, 25, 27, 28, 45
Convivencia 83 Garden of Delights (riyd
Crdoba 51, 245 al-sad) 45
Courtesy 217, 221, 223, 227, 228, Garden of Love 105
232-234; vs. wildness 217, 227, 228 Genre 83, 97, 103, 104
Courtiers 26, 28, 30, 44, 45 Granada 48, 52, 56, 57, 64
Courtliness 29, 67-71, 74-77, 81, 84-92, Gaydon 31; 33, 34
96-113 Granada 15, 46
Courtly culture 12, 22, 24, 26, 28, 31,
36, 39-41, 43, 45 Hall of the Boat (Sala de la Barca) 48
Creos 232-241 Hechos del Condestable 200
Crnica Troyana de Alfonso XI 14, 69, Historia General 16
73, 84, 87-102, 106-108, 113 Ibn Hudhayl 46, 52-54
Hurtado de Mendoza 53
Dante 239 Husam al-Dawla of Toledo 135
dantesque 250 Hybridity 104, 105
Diego de San Pedro, see San Pedro
Diego Garca de Padilla 15 Ibn Khaldun 53
Diplomacy 77-83 Ibn al-Khatb 45, 46, 52-55, 206
Iconeme 19, 21, 36
Egypt 30, 33 Identity 77, 95, 98, 100, 104, 105, 111,
Caliph of Egypt 31 112
Enrique II of Castile 61, 63 Isolda 19, 24, 25, 37-40
Enrique IV of Castile 210, (of Isolde 24, 38, 39
Trastmara) 128 Iseo/Yseo 27
Estoria de dos amadores 240-245 Iseo of the White Hands 37
exemplum 241 Ismail II 61, 129
Ismail III 58
Fernando III of Castile 57, (Ferdinand III Ivory; ivory objects 14, 26, 39
of Castile) 126
Fernando IV of Castile 58 Jan 57
Fernando of Antequera (I of Aragn) 63 Jan 202, 203, 207, 214
Fez 48, 49 Jaime I of Aragon 57
Floire 29, 31 Jerusalem 144
Flores 17, 18, 26-37, 43, 236 Juan of Aragn 127
Floire et Blancheeur; Flores y Blancaor Juan II of Castile 58, 63, 64
(FBF) 12, 16-18, 20, 21, 23, 26, 27, Juan Manuel, Don 44
29-31, 33, 36, 37, 39-41, 43, 46
Index / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) i-iv iii
Kitab al-yawarih 144 Maurolia 82

Knight, knights 13, 24, 25, 28, 40, 41, Maryam (mother of Ismail of
43, 44, 216, 219-227, 229, 230, 231, Granada) 129
233, 234 Ibn Marzuk al-Ayisi of Tlemcen 52
Muslim knight 233, 234 Minneteppich 195-198, 202
monkey/ape 171-176, 178
Lalaing 53 motif 215, 217, 220, 225, 230-233,
Lancelot/Lanzarote 14, 44 235; commonplace 215, 221, 223,
Len 135, 136, 144 230, 232, 235; topoi 221, 223, 232
Libro de la Monteria del Rey de Castilla Mozarabs 226
Alfonso XI 145-150 Mudjar; mudjars 15, 22, 75-78
Libro de las animalias que cazan 144, Muhammad (Prophet) 55
145 Muhammad I 57, 226, 227
Liessa 241-243 Muhammad III 58, 232
lion 206, 210-214, 221, 222, 224 Muhammad V 15, 16, 19, 23, 36, 45,
Livres dou tresor (Tesoro), Brunetto 47, 48, 50-56, 58, 61, 62, 65, 75,
Latini 158, 165 78-84, 101-103, 110, 126, 128-130,
Lpez de Ayala, Pedro 64 146-149, 191, 198, 208, 213
Llull, Ramon 44 Muhammad VI (the Rey Bermejo) 61,
locus agrestis 243 79, 80, 129, 130
locus amoenus 242 Muhammad VII 53
Love 17, 22, 28-30, 37, 38, 40 Muhammad VIII 58
Love poems 18 Muhammad IX 58
Lovesick; lovesickness Muhammad X 58
Tree of Love 29 Murcia 57, 126, 132, 145
love 223; phase of 224; sexual 222,
224, 228, 233, 234; courtly love 228, Njera 60
229, 233 Nasr 58
madness 224-226 nature 223; humanity vs. bestiality
Lovers 16, 17, 19, 25, 28, 30, 33-40, 224, 233; see also courtesy
46 Niebla 57
Madrasa 45 Order of the Band (Orden de la

Madrid 54 Banda) 23, 25, 28, 36, 43, 45, 55, 56,
Maghreb 47, 48 58-64, 66, 83, 86, 95, 100, 101, 110
magpie 160-163, 166, 176 Order of the Golden Fleece 62
Majlis 101-103, 110 Order of the Garter 62
Majnn Leyla 46 Order of Santiago 59
Al-Mamun of Toledo 137, 141
Mara de Luna 198 Palace of Comares 48
Mara de Padilla 15 Palazzo Chiaramonte 39
Mara of Portugal 128 Palazzo Steri 39
Marinid dynasty 48, 127 Palermo 39, 207
Mark, King 19, 37, 38; 41 Palomades; Palomedes 20, 38, 40-43
Martn I of Aragn 198 pedagogy 215, 221, 232, 233, 235
iv Index / Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) i-iv
Pedro Carrillo, knight from Castile 60 Siervo libre de amor 237-245

Pedro I the Cruel of Castile 15, 18, 23, Soria 141, 145
47, 48, 50, 55, 58, 60, 61, 63, 64, 69, Soto El Ramalete (see Castejon)
75, 78-83, 90, 95, 96, 122, 126-130, Su; Sus; Susm 45, 46, 180-182, 188
137, 145-149, 199, 209 Sleyman the Magnicent 210
Perceval 194
Philippe le Hardi 199 Taifa Kingdoms 135, 137, 144
Piazza Armerina 135 Tarifa 60, 64
prison as allegory 245-249 Teruel 61
Toledo 130, 135, 137, 141
Qarawiyin 49 Palace of al-Mamun 137, 141
Qusayr Amra 53, 135 Palace of Ruy Lpez Dvalos 71, 72,
96, 97
rabbit/hare 158, 159, 167, 183-185, 187 Tordesillas (Convento de Santa
Ridwan, vizier of Yusuf I 52, 128 Clara) 51, 64, 73, 75, 84, 87, 96, 97,
Roman de Renard 157 130
Roman de la Rose 194 Translatio imperiitranslatio studii 93
Translation 68, 84-94, 98-107
Sad 58 Tristan and Isolde 13, 15, 16, 21,
salvaje, denition 216-218; Alhambra 37-43
wild man in rst criticism, Tristn de Leonis 12, 15, 41-43
219-221; homo sylvestris 224; homo Tristan en Prose 40
agrestis 226; traits and spaces of Tristan; Tristn 19, 20, 23-25, 27,
225; caballero salvaje 225 and fnt.; 37-44, 194
wodehouse 220; and lady 216, Tryst Beneath the Tree 13, 23-25, 37,
219-223, 234; and knight 223, 224, 38
233, 234; in Iberian literature 225;
in sentimental ction 221, 224, Umayyads 135, 137, 145, 149
225, 227-229; as costume, passing
for 229, 231; in the arts 230; in Varqa and Gulshah 158-160, 184
spectacles 215, 221, 229, 231; as Valencia 57
desire see love Valladolid 60
San Baudelio de Berlanga 141-144 violence 221-225, 229, 231, 234, 235;
San Gimignano rape 222; spearing, killing 216, 233,
Frescoes in the palace of the podest 20, 234
21, 26 Vitruvius 49
Segovia 53
Segura 57 Yusuf I 52
sentimental ction 237, 238, 241, 245, Yusuf III 64
250-252 Yusuf IV ibn al-Mawl 58
Seville 53, 61, 64, 131, 132, 145 Yusuf V 58
Alczar 70, 73, 74, 81, 84, 87, 95, Yusuf ibn Nasr (see Muhammad I)
108, 114, 122-126, 130, 135-137, Yvein 19
199
Ibn Simak al-Amili 52 Ibn Zamrak 52, 129, 206
San Pedro 248, 249, 251

Cynthia Robinson, Simone Pinet-Courting The Alhambra - Cross-Disciplinary Approaches To The Hall of Justice Ceilings-Brill (2008)

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Courting The Alhambra

Courting The Alhambra

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Courting the Alhambra: Cross-Disciplinary Approaches to the Hall of Justice Ceilings /

ISBN-13 978 90 04 17342 2

Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands

Printed in the Netherlands

Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 153-163 www.brill.nl/me

Cynthia Robinson, Simone Pinet

The Alhambra, a complex formed by largely fourteenth-century Nasrid

to daring (and not always entirely successful) applications of twentieth-

southern-most ceilings as misunderstood representations of scenes from

other possible functions, a madrasa, one whose planning and construction

with the methodologies and concerns of other areas of studyhas elabo-

religious tolerance and cultural acceptance which ultimately bears little

As each of the essays brought together in this issue demonstrates, assump-

Please note that whenever there is a reference to an Illustration in an article

Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 164-198 www.brill.nl/me

Arthur in the Alhambra?

misunderstanding of an episode from the Galahad cycle); and the addi-

Ins Fernndez Ordez, demonstrates that FBF was treatedin Castile,

version of the tale known to Alfonso X, and it is therefore likely that

Although the manuscript contains contradictory statements concerning

reputation and ones pocketbookCampbell believes the stories were

least as interested in bravery in war and fechos de armas (deeds of war) as it

In other words, the rst fountain is anked by two carefully balanced

Just opposite the chess-playing scene we nd the best-known icono-

Moreover, it is worth remembering that in the French poetic tradition,

might be achieved through slightly dierent communicative processes.

Indeed, as suggested earlier, the narrative of Flores quest to rescue his

There follows a discussion of the distribution of power among the Caliph

mitigating questions of loyalty here. A long discussion ensues, at the end

placed his person in grave danger in order to rescue a captive, a deed of

transgressions committed by the lovers are later revealed not to be trans-

Figure 1. Palomades Defeated by Tristn, fragmentary copy of Tristn de

strongly believe that we should imagine the same to be true of Christian

who happened to be present. Nobility is reected in the man-to-beast

educational purposes by luminaries of the Grenadine court such as Ibn

Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 199-218 www.brill.nl/me

Painting Politics in the Alhambra

For viewers approaching the fourteenth-century painted ceilings of the so-

Pedro Is buildings, in turn, almost certainly impacted the conception of

gures, chivalric deeds and legends, clearly essential to the decorative

tion of a powerful patron, Muhammad V. Despite widely held beliefs

production, Granada was home to a particularly ourishing cultural and

weapons, which he later summarized for Muhammad VII as the Kitb

of the others. No attributes suggest particular or specic associations with

He continues his argument by comparing these companions of the Sultan

a rearmation of the Nasrid dynastys strength and power.29 One might

symbolic occasion. Subsequently, he himself conferred the orders on one

visual program of legitimization for his branch of the dynasty? If we con-

Medieval Encounters 14 (2008) 219-266 www.brill.nl/me

Courtliness and its Trujamanes :

Rosa Mara Rodrguez Porto

The Western appearance of the painted ceilings in the Hall of Justice

Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2008

challenges posed by an ensemble of courtly imagery apparently displaced

Gardens and Forked Paths: Visions of Courtliness in Medieval Iberia

Figure 1. Crnica Troyana de Alfonso XI (fol. 13v). Troy in Priams times.

provided by French ivory caskets as an iconographic source. Indeed, the

Figure 2. Paintings of the Castle of Alcaiz (Aragn, ca. 1330-1360s).

A common dating in the central decades of the fourteenth century, however,

Alcaiz occupying a rather distant second place.10 Such courtly imagery,