REQUIRED CORE: Convivencia (Coexistence) in Medieval Spain

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Из курса от партнера University of Colorado System

Coexistence in Medieval Spain: Jews, Christians, and Muslims

20 оценки

University of Colorado System

Coexistence in Medieval Spain: Jews, Christians, and Muslims

20 оценки

This course explores Jewish, Christian, and Muslim intercultural relations in Iberia from the Visigothic era (6th century CE) until the creation of Queen Isabel I and King Ferdinand II Catholic Spain (late 15th century). We evaluate the many identities of the peninsula known as Christian Hispania, Jewish Sefarad, and Islamic al-Andalus. We trace the origins and trajectory of conflict between these communities (the Muslim conquest of Spain, Christian Reconquista, prohibitions blocking intermixing of peoples, and expulsions). We aim to understand conflicts within communities as well, such as the tensions between Christian Arian Visigoths and native Catholic Iberians or the fundamentalist North African Almohad Dynasty that rejected the Spanish Umayyad Caliphate’s preference for religious tolerance. We delve into an appreciation of collaboration and coexistence among these communities. We explore the unique role of the Jewish community who Muslims and Christians depended upon as political and cultural intermediaries as well as their intellectual collaborators. We find the history of how peoples attempted to create and manage viable diverse communities. As we study this history, the Honors Track will employ an investigative process (“The Historian’s Craft”) that involves viewing, reading, analyzing, and reflecting on events, peoples, places, and artifacts.

Из урока

Introduction to Medieval Spain and Coexistence (418-711 CE)

This week introduces the idea of co-existence in medieval Spain. We begin our study of medieval Spain by briefly viewing Roman Spain and then learning about the Visigoths. Supplemental information places medieval Iberia within the contexts of European, Byzantine, and Islamic civilizations. The honors section of the course introduces "The Historian's Craft" and the task of "viewing".

REQUIRED CORE: An Introduction to Medieval Spain: Part 1 - Welcome to our Investigation3:55

REQUIRED CORE: An Introduction to Medieval Spain: Part 2 - It is a Journey and Conversation8:46

REQUIRED CORE: Convivencia (Coexistence) in Medieval Spain9:10

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Dr. Roger Louis Martínez-Dávila
Associate Professor
History

Let us continue this journey into

medieval Spain as you walk into this passageway through history.

Let's first consider one of the most important issues,

and that is the issue of convivencia or coexistence.

And we'll do that through this piece of artwork that we're looking at right now.

This particular door-knocker is from the Hispanic Society of America in

New York City and it's catalogued R111.

And I had the privilege of working with it in conjunction with the New

Mexico History Museum's 2016, Fractured Faiths Exhibition.

So what is coexistence or convivencia?

It is positive, negative, and ambivalent.

How do we define coexistence?

Well, coexistence in medieval Spain can be defined as

the sum of all relationships among Jews,

Christians, and Muslims, and their hybridized descendants.

Yes, coexistence includes friendly, productive,

collaborative, and mutually beneficial

relationships that allowed Iberians to work together and to live together.

It can include amity,

harmony, acceptance, intermingling, and interchange.

However, coexistence is also about conflict and violence,

animosity, discrimination, and suspicion.

I believe in its simplest form,

coexistence is the simultaneous occupation of physical,

intellectual, cultural, and religious space.

What does that mean?

It means that we are going to acknowledge that violence and

cooperation do coexist alongside of each other.

In this manner, warfare between two parties on the battlefield is a type of

negative coexistence because both parties are on that field and fighting.

They're physically there and it might end very poorly, yes.

But they are both existing at the same time and at the same place.

Coexistence thus is that continuity

of how long and what is the nature of that relationship.

Similarly, we can look at more positive forms of coexistence,

and that's why we're taking a look at this Mudejar door-knocker.

It's roughly from 1475 CE.

It is a blend of artistic methods,

and in this one,

we see Mudejar artwork which is a Christian adaptation of Islamic forms.

It is definitely a positive form of coexistence.

Personally, I find material culture or

these objects that we still have today whether those are pieces of architecture,

art work, day-to-day items like

this door-knocker as a particularly helpful way of appreciating the past.

There's some kind of tangible link that literally connects us to that past time period.

To know that a craftsman held this in his hands, or her hands,

and prepared it, and put care into it,

and brought a form out of these raw materials.

And now that we find it in our own hands,

that is a type of communion with the history.

So that's why I like these pieces in a way that

sometimes text might not be able to help us. So, what was Mudejar?

And I think this is an important kind of form that we want to

consider because it kind of encompasses a lot of what does coexistence mean.

So Mudejar was not a single unchanging style,

but rather an artistic approach that enjoyed the presence of Islamic elements.

Again, we want to remember that this is a Christian form.

Mudejar constantly reinvented itself

and in different influences can be detected clearly in different centuries.

What occurred was an art form that was heavy with detail and rich in decorate design,

that helped soften the austerity of the Christian ornamentation.

Specific Islamic inherentses within

the Spanish Mudejar resulted in interesting combinations of motifs and patterns.

In this door-knocker with a dragon depicted in the center,

the ironworker has made two screen like sheets of pierced iron.

The uppermost portion is composed purely of European Gothic Trefoil in organic motifs.

And we see these repeated at the bottom as well.

While the underneath unit,

that is below the top section,

maintains a paisley shaped holes corresponding to

gothic design but also creating an overall abstract pattern typical of Mudejar design.

It's vegetative you can see it.

On the left and right hand side we can see these traces of vines that run up and down,

but at the top, we have these surprising spires that rise above the grill,

reminiscent almost of a cathedral.

So we can see this is really,

this combination of elements that somehow or another seem to make sense,

and that is what coexistence,

I think, is in medieval Spain.

When kind of what might seem to be

kind of contradictory approaches to life or different approaches to

living can find a way to live together in some kind of

harmonious peace such as a piece of iron work.

So at this point,

I'd like to highlight the point that

coexistence and medieval Iberia is also deeply ambivalent.

What are we to make of the substantial conversions of Christians to Islam after

the initial Muslim conquest of Visigothic Spain in the eighth and ninth centuries?

Or what about the Christians who lived under Islamic rule who adopted

Arabic as their language as well as Islamic customs?

Are these positive, negative for more complicated types of coexistence?

Similarly, Jews converted to Christianity or conversos,

and Muslims who converted to Christianity, moriscos,

as Christian kingdoms regained portions of the Iberian Peninsula during

the Spanish Reconquista or the effort to reconquer Christian lands from Islamic kingdoms.

So if these conversions were not forced,

and they were adopted with a free conscience,

were they positive or negative?

Or more likely, was

the cultural and religious environment in late medieval Christian Spain

so weighted against religious minorities that any conversion was problematic?

Clearly the historical circumstances inform

our perspective about whether or not these conversions were good,

bad, or frankly ambivalent.

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