Chapter 12: Connie L. Scarborough

Chapter
12
Connie L. Scarborough
(Texas Tech University, Lubbock)
The Moors in Thirteenth‐Century Spain:
“They are Us!”
The long history of Muslim people in Iberia, largely Berbers from North Africa
referred to generally as the Moors, begins with their invasion and occupation of
almost the entire Iberian Peninsula in 711. By the thirteenth century, the age of the
great kings, Saint Fernando III and his son, Alfonso X el Sabio (Alfonso X, the
Wise), most of the important cities had been returned to Christian rule but with a
Moorish population living in many of them. Also, the Moorish kingdom of
Granada continued as a separate Islamic state in the Peninsula. After six centuries
of struggles over territories as well as long periods of more or less peaceful
coexistence, the Christian view of Moors was complicated to say the least.
The problematic term “convivencia” or “living together” has been coined to
denote those centuries in Iberian history when Christians, Moors, and Jews lived
in company either under an Islamic sovereign or under Christian lordship. The
sometime peaceful, sometime antagonistic relationship among these ethnic/
Copyright © 2013. De Gruyter, Inc.. All rights reserved.
religious groups is well‐established.1 The mudéjares (Muslims living under

Christian rule) in Alfonso X’s kingdoms were protected by the king and allowed
1
For an arguments that the coexistence of Christians, Jews and Muslims was harmonious, see María
Rosa Menocal, Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of
Tolerance in Medieval Spain (New York: Little Brown, 2002). For more nuanced views of
“convivencia,” see, for example, the articles in Mark D. Meyerson and Edward D. English, ed.
Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Medieval and Early Modern Spain: Interaction and Cultural Change.
Notre Dame Conferences in Medieval Studies, VIII (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1999), and those in Convivencia: Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Medieval Spain, ed. Vivian
B. Mann, Thomas Glick, and Jerrilyn D. Dodds (New York: George Braziller in association with
The Jewish Museum, 1992).
Classen, Albrecht, ed. 2013. East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times : Transcultural Experiences in the
Premodern World. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, Inc.. Accessed April 28, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central.
Created from ujaen on 2020-04-28 01:34:05.
506 Connie L. Scarborough
a fair degree of autonomy in managing the internal workings of their community.2
But the Christian and Moorish communities were far from segregated and
members of both groups were in daily contact with one another, especially in
urban areas, and exchanges across cultural lines were many and diverse. Thomas
Glick reminds us that “In assessing the variety of cultural elements exchanged, we
must recognize that these did not merely include vocabulary, techniques, or
manners of speech, dress, or diet, and that acculturation involved conscious shifts
of the most subtle and intimate nature.”3 This blending of cultures produced a
unique hybridity in Iberia—one in which people of different faith groups
resembled one another in social contexts that resisted neat segregation on grounds
of religious belief or ethnicity. As a result Christian authors/artists often struggled
when faced with portraying Muslims, because they were part of their daily reality
and, as such, could not be easily or clearly delineated as alien “Other.”
García‐Arenal first advanced the theory that Christian literary and artistic
representations of Moors were far from homogeneous. She distinguishes between
what she calls Muslims of the interior and Muslims of the exterior. The former
group consisted of those Moors who had lived for many years in the Iberian
Peninsula in areas of Christian control—the mudéjares (free, independent Muslim
citizens living under a Christian sovereign) as well as Moorish slaves and domestic
servants. The Muslims of the exterior were those who lived in Islamist‐controlled
territories both within the Iberian Peninsula and outside it.4 According to García‐
Arenal, these “exterior Muslims” are almost always portrayed as religious,
political, and military enemies of the Christians, while the mudéjares were a
familiar part of the racial/ethnic make‐up of the Spaniards.
The complex and often contradictory attitudes toward Muslims can, in part, be
understood by following García‐Arenal’s distinction between the mudéjares (Us)
and the Moors living outside Christian‐controlled territories (Them). But only in
part, because such a binary thesis does not explain the multi‐faceted and hybrid
relationship of Christian and Moors in medieval Iberia, as Barbara Fuchs has
explained beautifully in her book Exotic Nation: Maurophilia and the Construction of
Early Modern Spain. Although Fuchs’s work concentrates on the period after the
2
See, for example, Title XXV, Law I of the seventh Partida that upholds the Moors’ rights to govern
themselves and prohibits confiscation of their properties. Samuel Parson Scott, trans. and Robert
J. Burns, SJ, ed., Las Siete Partidas. 5 vols. The Middles Ages Series (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2001), V: 14–38.
3
Glick, “Convivencia: An Introductory Note,” Convivencia: Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Medieval
Spain (see note 1), 1–9; here 5. Now see also Uneasy Communion: Jews, Christians and the Alterpieces
of Medieval Spain, ed. Vivian B. Mann and Thomas F. Glick (New York: Musuem of Biblical Art in
Association with D. Giles, Ltd, 2010).
4
See Mercedes García‐Arenal. “Los moros en las Cantigas de Alfonso X el Sabio,” Al‐Qantara 6
(1985): 133–51.
The Moors in Thirteenth‐Century Spain 507
fall of Granada (1492) and the eventual expulsion of the moriscos (Moors baptized
as Christians) in 1609, much of her theoretical approach—relying on notions of
hybridity from Postcolonial Studies—is applicable to earlier centuries. Fuchs
states, “If we reconstruct Spain’s affinity with Moorish culture . . . without
adopting a post‐facto, teleological perspective, we find a far more nuanced
situation than the shriller contemporary denunciations of the Moors’ presence in
Spain would suggest.”5 This more subtle and constant negotiation between
Christians and Moors is central to any examination of portrayal of Moors in
Christian‐authored texts from the Middle Ages. Although, in some instances,
Moors appear as an identifiable category that is inherently inferior to its Christian
counterpart, they are part of the social framework woven into these texts, an
inescapable part of their authors’ day‐to‐day reality.
In this study, I will explore how select works composed at the court of Alfonso
X (reigning from 1252–1284) are products of Spain’s “intimacy with Moorishness”
and, following Fuchs’s lead, I will show how “conceptual models based on the
distance between West and East miss the more interesting and paradoxical
connections of the Spanish case.”6 By concentrating on these thirteenth‐century
works I hope to illuminate what Ron Barkai has called the “mentalities” or
“conceptions” inherent in the relationship between Moors and Christians in Iberia.
According to Barkai, the study of texts and images can help us to understand this
complex relationship better than the impressions we have from purely juridical/
legal investigations or chronological/political approaches (11–12).7 That being said,
however, some historical background is needed to put the literary and pictorial
objects of my study into perspective.
Beginning in the eleventh century, Christian dominance in the Peninsula began
to prevail while lands held under Muslim sovereignty were gradually reduced.8
In the first half of the thirteenth century Alfonso X’s father, Fernando III, had
conquered great swaths of territory in southern Spain, formerly under the control
of Muslim rulers. After the conquest of Córdoba in 1236, most of the other towns
along the River Guadalquivir surrendered also to the Castilian king. Once Sevilla
fell to Fernando in 1248, the Moors of the region really had no other option than
to become vassals of the Christian monarch and pay him tributes or immigrate to
5
Barbara Fuchs, Exotic Nation: Maurophilia and the Construction of Early Modern Spain (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 2.
6
Fuchs, Exotic Nation (see note 5), 4. See also the contribution to this volume by Jens T. Wollesen.
7
Ron Barkai, Cristianos y musulmanes en la España medieval (El enemigo en el espejo), 2nd ed. (1984;
Madrid: Ediciones Rialp, 1991), 11–12.
8
Julio Valdeón Baruque, “Alfonso X y la convivencia cristiano‐judío‐islámica,” Estudios Aflonsíes:
lexicografía, lírica, estética y política de Alfonso el Sabio, ed. José Mondéjar and Jesús Montoya
(Granada: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Instituto de Ciencias de la Educación, 1985), 167–77; here
168.
the Muslim Kingdom of Granada or other parts of the Islamic world.9 Fernando
III did not expel Moorish inhabitants from their lands and those who chose to
remain after the Christian conquests continued to live in the same places and
manners that they had before, but simply changed sovereigns. Due to a series of
pacts and treaties of surrender, these Moors became personal subjects of the king.
Incorporating large Moorish populations into newly Christian‐controlled areas
was not new with Fernando. It had been the policy in the conquest of Toledo in
1085 and was also a common practice in Aragón and Cataluña.10 Fernando saw
the wisdom in not having vast tracts of totally unpopulated land and the benefit
of increasing the royal coffers when he gave rather generous incentives to the
Moorish population to stay put and accept him as their lord.
The agreements drawn up between the Christian king and the Moorish
population were called capitulaciones. These pacts dealt with military matters, such
as the Moors’ obligation to give up their weapons and, at times, cooperate in the
reconstruction of damaged castles or other fortifications. In the area of fiscal
policies, the capitulaciones usually specified certain taxes that would be levied on
the Moorish population. Furthermore, the capitulaciones guaranteed that the
Muslims could maintain their own internal governing systems with their alcaldes
(mayors) and elders representing the various clans as administers of justice for
their own people according to Koranic law. They could freely practice their
religion, mosques were respected, and the teaching of the Koran was permitted.
The Moors were also free to sell their properties and move to territories under
Muslim control if they should desire.11 With these policies Andalucía became, like
a good part of the rest of the Iberian Peninsula, a Christian‐mudéjar zone.
Fernando III’s son, Alfonso X, at first respected the policies of his father toward
the Moors but he modified these when he felt it strategically necessary. For
example, in 1254 he declared that, because of the strategic importance of the towns
of Morón and Cote for the protection and defense of Sevilla, the Moors in these
towns were to be relocated and given new properties elsewhere. He then
encouraged Christian residents to occupy the Moors’ former dwellings and land
holdings.12 These policies caused a good deal of discontent among the mudéjares,
with many deciding to immigrate to the Moorish kingdom of Granada. In 1264,
there were violent uprisings by the mudéjares that caught Alfonso completely off
guard. When the rebellion was finally suppressed, Alfonso’s formally good
relationship with Granada was shattered and many mudéjares abandoned his
kingdoms. As a result, the king was forced to devote much of his time and energy
9
Manuel González Jiménez, Alfonso X el Sabio. Ariel biografias (Barcelona: Ariel, 2004), 166.
10
González Jiménez, Alfonso X (see note 9), 167.
11
González Jiménez, Alfonso X (see note 9), 168–69.
12
to repopulating strategically important towns and villages with new Christian
settlers.13 Alfonso’s change in policy also signaled a change in mudéjar society that,
under his father, had lived peacefully, but submissively, under the tutelage of the
Christian lord. The new tension created with the mudéjar population was one of
the many reasons that Alfonso’s popularity declined and his successes in other
areas were somewhat overshadowed. According to Julio Valdeón, Alfonso’s
attitudes toward his Moorish subjects was contradictory in the sense that he
fostered great cultural cooperation between Muslims and Christians, as well as
Jews, especially in the area of scholarly production, while, at the same time, he
pursued increasingly severe policies toward both his Muslim and Jewish minority
populations.14
By actively promoting the transmission of Arabic texts and learning at his court,
Alfonso was continuing a practice begun centuries earlier in Toledo. Toledo was
a center for translation of both Arabic and Hebrew texts where Spanish, German,
English, and Italian scholars came into direct contact with Arabic scientific and
philosophical texts.15 Besides fostering the work in Toledo, Alfonso established a
school in Murcia for training in Latin and Arabic called the Estudios y Escuelas
Generales de latín e de arábigo (Colleges and General Schools of Latin and Arabic)
and named the Muslim mathematician, al‐Ricotí, as the school’s director.16
Alfonso’s scholars translated works on astronomy and astrology, many of which
were gathered together to produce the Libros de saber de astronomía (Books on the
Knowledge of Astronomy). He also directed the translation of the theories of
Ptolomeus and others on instruments used for astronomical measurements and
calculations. The king later produced the Tablas Alfonsíes, a work recognized as
marking the beginning of mature European astronomy.17
Alfonso was the first non‐Muslim monarch to sponsor a series of astronomical
observations that would result in the writing of the Tablas. According to the
Tablas’s prologue these observations took place in Toledo during ten years,
probably between 1263 and 1272 under the direction of two of Alfonso’s Jewish
collaborators, Yehudá b. Moshé and Isaac b. Sid. The primary concerns of these
scientists were: (1) solar observations based on Ptolemaic principles (the sun at its
equinoxes and solstices) and on those of the astronomers of the caliph al‐Ma’mūn
13
14
Valdeón Baruque, “Alfonso X y la convivencia,” (see note 8), 168.
15
Valdeón Baruque, “Alfonso X y la convivencia,” (see note 8), 170.
16
17
Julio Samsó, “La ciencia española en la época de Alfonso el Sabio,” Alfonso X, Toledo 1984 (Madrid:
Ministerio de Cultura, Dirección General de Bellas Artes y Archivos, 1984), 89–101; here 100; see
now the contributions to Wissen über Grenzen: Arabisches Wissen und lateinisches Mittelalter, ed.
Andreas Speer and Lydia Wegener. Miscellanea mediaevalia, 33 (Berlin and New York: Walter
de Gruyter, 2006).
around the year 830 (the sun at intervals between the equinoxes and solstices); (2)
solar and lunar eclipses, observed in 1263 and 1266 by Isaac b. Sid; (3) conjunctions
of the planets with fixed stars; and, (4) fixed stars.18 The results of these
observations as found in the Tablas alfonsíes had an enormous influence in Europe
(after their translation into Latin) in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and
were superseded only during the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.19
Other translations of Arabic scholarship carried out by Alfonso’s team was the
work of geography by Abu Obaid al Becrí, Libro de los caminos y de los reinos (Book
of Roads and Kingdoms) and a book on recreations, El libro de axedrez, dados e tablas
(Book of Chess, Dice, and Backgammon). Alfonso’s great work of history, the General
Estoria, was intended to be a universal history from the creation of the world until
Alfonso’s time. Even though this great magnum opus remained unfinished, it is
worth noting that, among the many sources Alfonso and his collaborators
consulted, there were Arabic historians such as Albercrí and Alguazif.20 The king’s
translation of the Arabic collection of moralizing tales, Calia e Dimna, is usually
identified as the beginning of fiction writing in Castilian.
The most noteworthy aspect of Alfonso’s work of translation and composition
is that all his prose texts were composed in Castilian instead of Latin. Especially
in his scientific and legal works in Castilian, the king introduced many neologisms
into the language and incorporated much of the abstract vocabulary from Arabic
into Castilian.21 Valdeón postulates that the cultural production under Alfonso’s
patronage was not specifically Christian, Muslim, or Jewishm, but rather a new
breed that contained ingredients from each of these contributing components.22
Translations of Arabic texts at the court of Alfonso had enormous consequences
for the transmission of Arabic knowledge throughout Europe. The king’s
intellectual projects were marked by a remarkable degree of cooperation between
Christian, Muslim, and Jew scholars, artists, and scribes. But, as a Christian
monarch, Alfonso was faced with the practical realities of mitigating the
difficulties and conflicts that arose from governing a multi‐religious and ethnic
society, with significant Muslim and Jewish minority populations.
The king was stalwart in promoting Christian, Castilian hegemony in the
Peninsula but he also recognized that these minority peoples were his subjects and
his responsibility. His policy of repopulating newly‐acquired territories with
18
Samsó, “La ciencia española,” (see note 17), 100.
19
Samsó, “La ciencia española,” (see note 17), 100.
20
21
On the Arabic influence on the language of Alfonso’s writings see Federico Corriente’s article,
“Los arabismos en las Cantigas de Santa María,” Estudios alfonsíes (see note 8), 59–65.
22
Valdeón Baruque, “Alfonso X y la convivencia” (see note 8), 171.
Christian settlers was detrimental to his kingdom in a number of ways. When
Moors migrated out of these territories they took with them their knowledge of
cultivating the lands with elaborate systems of irrigation with which most of new
Christian settlers were not familiar. As a result, formerly productive land was left
uncultivated and food supplies declined. Large expanses of useless land
contributed to the development of a largely‐unpopulated frontier which produced
no revenues for the crown.23
In legislation, Alfonso tried to establish policies and regulations for the special
issues that arose regarding the Muslims and Jews who continued to live under his
rule. In his great code of laws, the Siete Partidas (1265), Alfonso’s primary concern
in dealing with the Moors was not with their religious rights but with establishing
laws to restrict their political power since they “constituted a ubiquitous threat to
the political designs of Christian rulers.”24 However, as Dwayne Carpenter has
pointed out, these statutes often clothe this political concern in the language of
religious difference. One of Alfonso’s chief concerns in this legislation is the deeply
feared Christian conversion to Islam, and the king devotes five laws to this
eventuality (Partida VII, Law 25, Titles 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8).25 Anyone who converts to
Islam will lose all his or her property and be put to death.
These laws also stipulate that any married man or woman who converts to Islam
will be declared an adulterer. Carpenter concludes that the number and details in
the laws dealing with converts to Islam is a sign that, indeed, this was a frequent
problem.26 One of the reasons the king gives for a Christian wanting to become a
Muslim is an attraction to the Moorish lifestyle. This predilection for Muslim
habits of dress, food, and general lifestyle attests to a high degree of cultural
integration between peoples of the two faiths. Nevertheless, these laws liken
conversion to an act of high treason. But Alfonso gives himself a way out of
imposing the ultimate penalty on a convert to Islam. If a Christian who had
converted to Islam subsequently performs some outstanding service to the
Christian states he will be absolved of the crime of apostasy.27
With regard to mosques, in Christian‐controlled territories, these belong to the
king who can give them to whomever he wishes. Since Muslims continued to

worship in areas controlled by Christians in thirteenth‐century Spain, we can infer
that the king often chose to give these mosques to the Moors. But there were some
restrictions. For example, the call to prayer could not be made from a mosque’s
23
González Jiménez, Alfonso X (see note 9), 172–73.
24
Dwayne E. Carpenter, “Minorities in Medieval Spain: The Legal Status of Jews and Muslims in
the Siete Partidas,” Romance Quarterly 33.3 (1986), 275–87; here 275.
25
Carpenter, “Minorities in Medieval Spain” (see note 24), 277.
26
27
minaret.28 Moors were allowed some judicial autonomy in dealing with matters
internal to the community but could not interfere with Christian legal proceedings
(Partida VII, Title 25, Law 1). Unlike the Jewish population, the Moors were not
obliged to live in separate neighborhoods from Christians. And Muslims that
decided to convert to Christianity were often treated very favorably when the king
distributed royal lands.29 Also, as we have seen, Alfonso had many learned
Muslims (and Jews) at his court, assisting in the work of translation of texts or
serving as doctors or teachers.
García‐Arenal’s thesis that there is an identifiable difference in attitudes toward
the mudéjares living in Spain and the “enemy” moors living in the Iberian Kingdom
of Granada and those of North Africa might seem to explain initially some of the
contradictions in the king’s policies toward the Moors. But this essentialist, and
perhaps racist, argument which pits the Moors in Granada and the Benimerines
of Northern Africa as irreconcilable enemies against the more familiar mudéjares
has severe limitations. It is true that the mudéjares were more integrated into
Christian society and worked in both towns and the countryside alongside
Christians but, by Alfonso’s time, Christians could and did exploit, adopt, reject,
or assimilate various aspects of Arabic/Islamic, as well as Jewish, cultures.30 The
enemy was not exclusively a “them” isolated from “us”; he/she was part of the
hybrid identity of all people living in medieval Spain, a reality that required
constant negotiation with Moorishness that was not “a historical relic but a vivid
presence in quotidian Spanish culture.”31
Alfonso included Moorish protagonists in the poems and miniatures of his great
collection of Marian miracles, Las Cantigas de Santa Maria.32 Of the 412 poems
contained in the CSM approximately one‐eighth deal with Moors. The subject
matter of these poems ranges from Christian victories over Moors, conversion of
Moorish subjects to Christianity, and Moors who enjoy the miraculous mercies of
the Virgin Mary despite their persistence in the Islamic faith. There are examples
of mudéjares as well as Muslims from outside the kingdoms under Alfonso’s
jurisdiction. The frequent and varying portrayals of Moors in text and miniature
attest to the scope of the relationships between Muslims and Christians in
thirteenth‐century Iberia. Although the CSM is a text designed to foster Christian,
particularly Marian, devotion, Moors have a significant presence in the collection.
Even when Alfonso and his collaborators adapt Marian miracle narratives that had
28
Manuel González Jiménez, “Alfonso X y las minorías confesionales de mudéjares y judíos,”
Aportaciones de un rey castellano a la construcción de Europa, coord. Miguel Rodríguez Llopis
(Murcia: Región de Murcia, Consejería de Cultura y Educación, 1997), 71–90; here 82.
29
González Jiménez, “Alfonso X y las minorías” (see note 28), 83–84.
30
García Arenal, “Los moros” (see note 4), 134.
31
Fuchs, Exotic Nation (see note 5), 5.
32
Hereafter, CSM.
originated in other cultural, linguistic, or historical contexts, the inclusion of
Moorish protagonists is a reminder of the Moors as an undeniable part of
contemporary reality.
A good example of a poem in which a mudéjar appears is no. 167 in the
collection. In this cantiga a Moorish woman from Borja—a town in the province
of Zaragoza with a large mudéjar population during Alfonso’s rule—turns to the
Virgin to revive her child who has died. After the her son dies, the mudéjar mother
decides to commend him to Holy Mary of Salas since she has witnessed many
Christians going there and receiving miraculous aid from the Virgin. Her Moorish
friends oppose her decision but the woman is steadfast in her belief that the Virgin
will answer her pleas and resuscitate her son. Upon arriving at the shrine, she
speaks to Mary saying “Se non mente / ta lee, dá‐me meu fillo, e farey tig’
ave~ ença” (II, 169; If your law does not lie, give me my son, and I will make my
peace with you, 202).33 The mother keeps vigil all night in the church at Salas and
Holy Mary restores the child’s life. The Moorish woman is amazed and at once
converts to Christianity.
While one might argue that the main theme of this cantiga is Islamic conversion
to Christianity, from the outset of this poem, the Muslim woman is portrayed in
a sympathetic light. The refrain to the poem emphasizes the Virgin’s boundless
grace and mercies even to those of other faiths: “Quen quer que na Virgen fia e a
roga de femença, / valer‐ll‐á, pero que seja d’ outra lee en creença” (II, 168). The
Virgin will aid whoever trusts in Her and prays faithfully to Her, although he be
a follower of another law, 202). In the six miniatures that accompany this poem,
the mudéjar woman is portrayed as attractive and pale‐skinned (Fig. 1). She does
wear a hijab‐type headdress in some of the miniatures but this portrayal is not
consistent. For example, she is seen with her head bare with long, dark hair in the
first miniature in which men are also present and in the last miniature which
shows the woman and her son in a baptismal font.
Of course, it could be argued that the men in the home in the first miniature are
members of the woman’s immediate family and that in the final miniature she is
now a Christian and, thus, does not wear the head scarf. But, it was also very
common in Alfonso’s time for Christian, as well as Muslim, women to cover their
heads and adopt Moorish styles of dress in general. One other detail is worth
mentioning. The poem does not indicate that the mudéjar woman’s son also
33
All quotes from the CSM are from the 3 volume edition of Walter Mettmann, Cantigas de Santa
Maria, Clásicos Castalia, 134, 172, 178 (Madrid: Castalia, 1984–1989). All translations of the CSM
are from Kathleen Kulp‐Hill’s Songs of Holy Mary of Alfonso X, the Wise: A Translation of the
Cantigas de Santa Maria, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 173 (Tempe, AZ: Arizona
Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2000). References are to volume and page number
in the Mettmann edition and to page numbers for the Kulp‐Hill translation.
converts to Christianity but, as we see in the final miniature, Alfonso’s artists chose
to portray the conversion of the two.
In cantiga 358, a mudéjar, described as a master builder, works on the
construction of a church dedicated to the Virgin in El Puerto de Santa María. This
is one of a number of poems that deal with Alfonso’s conquest and subsequent
rebuilding of the Moorish city of Alcanate as a Christian town which he renames
El Puerto de Santa María (Saint Mary’s Port) in honor of the Virgin. The builder’s
name is given in the poem as Ali When Ali is faced with a shortage of stones for
the church’s construction, a man shows him a stash of perfectly square, quarried
stones ready for building the walls. Ali realizes that the Virgin herself had put this
supply of stones readily at his disposal and recognizes that Holy Mary wants her
church to be constructed quickly and soundly. This poem does not indicate that
Ali converts to Christianity after coming to this realization but it makes clear that
he fully acknowledges the Virgin’s hand in the miraculous appearance of the large,
square stones. Unfortunately, no miniatures appear for this cantiga in either of the
two illustrated codices of the CSM, but we can assume that this mudéjar also would
be portrayed in a positive way since he is building a church for the Virgin and
openly acknowledges Holy Mary’s miraculous aid in helping him to complete the
project as ordered by King Alfonso. The text also recognizes the fact that mudéjar
builders were very active and their contributions to Christian‐sponsored
architectural projects in the peninsula were vast.
A much different sort of Moor, a more bellicose one, is portrayed in cantiga 95.
In this poem a group of Moors invade Portugal and kidnap a Christian hermit
living by the seaside.34 While the pious hermit is fishing one day, Moorish troops
who had come from Africa to attack the Peninsula take the holy man prisoner.
They then rob everything along the coast and make raids on the interior: “fezeron
gran guerra / rouband’ en mar quant’ achavan e saynd’ a terra” (I, 293; they waged
fierce war, robbing everything they found at sea and sallying forth on land, 120).
However, when the Moors try to leave the Peninsula, the Virgin causes the wind
to blow them back toward the coast for three long days. The Moorish admiral
recognizes that God is displeased by their kidnapping of the holy man and decides
to set him free. When the hermit is returned to his hermitage, the Moorish fleet is
able to sail away without any delay. The text even stipulates that when subsequent
Muslim raiding parties came to the shore near to where the hermit lives, they leave
him alone because they know he enjoys the protection of God.
The Muslims warriors in the miniatures accompanying this cantiga are
represented as a heterogeneous racial mix. The artists portray fair‐skinned
turbaned Arabs as well as dark‐skinned Africans with short, curly hair and more
34
Alfonso claimed rights to southern Portugal, the Algarve, and so he would have viewed this
incursion as an attack on his own territories.
Negroid features (Figs. 2 and 2a). These figures probably represent the varieties
of Muslim peoples with whom Spaniards would have been intimately familiar.
The fact that the Moors recognize God’s displeasure when they kidnap an innocent
man indicates a certain commonality of belief with Christians with regard to
incurring divine wrath for immoral and unwarranted behavior.
The sultan of Morocco, Abū Yūsuf Ya’qūb (ruled 1258–1286), appears in at least
four of the cantigas that deal with Moors. Ya’qūb was a sworn enemy of Alfonso’s
since 1260 when Castilian troops invaded and raided his coastal city of Salé. In
1275 the new king of Granada, Muh. ammed II, in spite of having sworn loyalty to
Alfonso, asked Ya’qūb for his assistance against the rebellious governors of the
Banū Ashqīlūlā family in Málaga and Guadix. Alfonso had allied himself with the
Banū Ashqīlūlā family with the aim of weakening the power of Granada by
fostering internal dissensions in the kingdom. This is the background for the
events portrayed in, cantiga 323. This poem vividly describes Ya’qūb’s raid against
Coria del Río in the Province of Sevilla in Spain. The Benimerines from Morocco
invaded the Peninsula at the end of January and the beginning of February of 1275.
Led by Abū Yūsuf Ya’qūb, these forces made their way up the River Guadalquivir
looting, pillaging, and taking prisoners as they went.35
The incident described in cantiga 323 occurs when the Benimerines are almost
at the gates of Sevilla. In Coria a young boy has just died of fever and, as the father
is mourning his death, the troops of Abū Yūsuf Ya’qūb invade the village and all
the townsfolk are obliged to abandon the town to the plundering Muslim hordes.
The father commends his house and his son’s body to the Virgin and then flees,
leaving all he possesses to whatever fate awaits them. The Moors burn and loot the
entire village with the sole exception of the grieving father’s home. When the
father returns to Coria, he finds his son restored to life and nothing in his house
stolen or harmed. When he questions his son about this miracle, the boy says that
the Virgin appeared, revived him, and protected the house and all their
possessions from the Moors. All the townspeople recognize this miracle and weep
for joy at their neighbor’s good fortune.
The poem clearly states that the Moors burned many other villages in the area
of Sevilla: “a terra de Sevilla tod’ a eito / correu, e muitas aldeas foron dos mouros
queimadas (III, 148; rapidly invaded all the land of Seville, and many villages were
burned by the Moors, 392). They raided and plundered everything they found: “os
mouros logo deitaron / sas algaras e correron e roubaron quant’ acharon” (III, 149;
hordes of Moors fell on them and raided and plundered everything in their path,
392). There can be no doubt that, in this and other cantigas, despite near‐complete
35
Joseph F. O’Callaghan, Alfonso X and the Cantigas de Santa Maria: A Poetic Biography, The
Medieval Mediterranean, Peoples, Economies and Cultures 400–1453, 16 (Leiden, Boston, and
Cologne: Brill, 1998), 137.
domination by Christian forces in the peninsula by Alfonso’s time, the need for
continued vigilance still existed as this historically‐accurate account of a Moorish
incursion attests. While on a quotidian basis, Alfonso’s populace was living a
hybrid existence, a syncretism that mixed elements of both Christian practice and
Moorish identity markers, the king, as Christian sovereign, feels obliged to keep
alive remnants of a Moorish other, the enemy at the gate ever ready to reassert its
ascendency. The miniatures for this cantiga are unfortunately incomplete but give
some idea of the visual representation of the events narrated in the poem. (Fig. 3)
On one level, these few examples from the Cantigas de Santa Maria seem to bear
out the thesis that portrayals of mudéjares were much more sympathetic than the
more threatening representations of Muslims living outside of Christian‐
dominated territories. But this binary distinction fails to explain either the
complexity or some of the inherent contradictions vis‐à‐vis the portrayals of Moors
in the Alfonsine corpus. Theoretically, King Alfonso and all his Christian
contemporaries rejected the legitimacy of Islamic religious beliefs. In Spain, the
activities of the mudéjares were, to a degree, legally restricted especially with
regard to certain social interactions, such as marriage or sexual intercourse, with
Christians. Moors from outside the Peninsula and those of the Kingdom of
Granada were viewed with suspicion, and King Alfonso was repeatedly forced to
defend his borders and, at times, go on the offensive.
But there was a certain laxity in his dealings with Moors residing in his
kingdom, and little evidence suggests that laws dealing with the mudéjares were
strictly enforced. And, as we have seen, Moors and Jews were active in court life,
especially in the production and translation of texts. While, in some ways Alfonso
showed tolerance and even respect for his Muslim subjects, he was, first and
foremost a Christian monarch. And, like all Christian rulers of his day, on one
level, he thought of Moors as inferiors and considered this a normal situation. We
should not judge him with contemporary sensibilities or see his attitudes as
particularly prejudiced or discriminatory. In fact, the king most probably
considered himself magnanimous and benevolent in his treatment of his non‐
Christian subjects.36
In his cultural enterprises—the production of scientific, historical, legal and
literary works—Alfonso was profoundly attracted to and influenced by Eastern,
Oriental, cultures, both Islamic and Jewish. These rich cultural and intellectual
traditions helped him to satisfy his nearly insatiable quest for knowledge. His
seemingly inconsistency with regard to the portrayal of Moors and his political
relationship to his Moorish subjects are byproducts of the king’s own hybridity of
36
González Jiménez, “Alfonso X y la minorías confesionales” (see note 28), 87.
identity. The Moor is “Other” but he/she is also “Us” and the differentiation
between Christian and Moors cannot be explained by simple, essentialist and
binary arguments. The corpus of works that bears Alfonso’s imprimatur represent,
and reflect, his best efforts to come to grips with his, and his people’s inherent
“Moorishness”—the process of constant negotiation between the ideal of Christian
hegemony and the realities of a Spain unable, and unwilling, to dislodge the
Moorish elements of Spanish identity.
Fig. 1: Cantiga 167, ms. Escorial T.I.1
Fig. 2: Cantiga 95, page 1, ms. Escorial T.I.1
Fig. 2a: Cantiga 95, page 2, ms. Escorial T.I.1
Fig. 3: Cantiga 323, Florence ms. folio 30v

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religious groups is well‐established.1 The mudéjares (Muslims living under

king who can give them to whomever he wishes. Since Muslims continued to

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