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ABSTRACT
During the early Middle Ages, the Iberian Peninsula was the scene of a political and religious conflict in which antiquity played a surprisingly significant role. From the time of the Islamic conquest, Umayyad emirs, Christians kings, and local cities and aristocratic families turned their eyes to the past, looking for elements to create their own memories, identities, and discourses. Antiquity was used as a tool, generating explanations to understand and legitimize the present. However, the process of reception and the discourses of legitimacy that were invoked have not been properly considered since only the Christian discourse managed to survive, due to the “Reconquista” as well as modern Spanish nationalistic and Catholic historiography.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributor
Jorge Elices Ocón Trained as a historian, archaeologist and Arab philologist, Jorge Elices is a postdoctoral researcher at the Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo, where he is developing a project, supported by the FAPESP, on the reception of classical statues in Islamic medieval societies. This project continues the research line initiated with his PhD, which focused on Classical Antiquity in early Umayyad al-Andalus. His dissertation has been recently published as Respeto o Barbarie. El islam ante la Antigüedad. De al-Andalus a DAESH (Marcial Pons, 2020). He also the author of Antigüedad y legitimación política en la Alta Edad Media peninsular (siglos VIII-X) (Universidad de Sevilla, in press), and Samarra (National Geographic, 2018). His research focuses on the reception of Antiquity, uses and abuses of the past, discourses of political legitimacy, Islamic perceptions of heritage, and ancient memories in Arabic sources.
Notes
*This work was supported by the FAPESP, under Grant 2018/15102-7.
1 Regarding the concept of Jāhiliyya and its religious and chronological connotations, see Webb, Creating Arab Origins. Other concepts employed throughout this paper are worth clarifying. “Iberia” designates a geographical region, the Iberian Peninsula, later known as “Hispania” by the Romans, as “Spania” in some early medieval sources, and as “al-Andalus” in the Arabic sources. The Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo had control over the greater part of Iberia from 507–711 CE, including the northeastern provinces, such as Tarraconensis and Septimania, which corresponded to the territories beyond the Pyrenees around Narbonne.
2 Nora, “Between Memory and History.”
3 Doerr, “Memory and Culture;” Harris, “It Takes a Tragedy;” Anton, “Cultural Memory;” Erll and Rigney, Mediation, Remediation; Rigney, “Remembering Hope.”
4 Nora, “Between Memory and History,” 19–20. See also Basu, Ned Kelly as Memory Dispositif, 3.
5 On the conquest and formation of al-Andalus: Lévi-Provençal, España musulmana; Guichard, Al-Andalus. Estructura antropológica; Chalmeta, Invasión e islamización; Acién Almansa, Entre el feudalismo y el islam; Manzano Moreno, Conquistadores, emires y califas; Ibrahim, “Nuevos documentos;” García Sanjuán, La conquista islámica, 149–71; Fancy and García Sanjuán, What Was the Islamic Conquest?
6 Crónica Mozárabe del 754, 59; Akhbār Maŷmū’a, 20; Ibn al-Qūṭiyya, Taʾrīj, 11/8; Fath, 43/31–2; Ibn ‘Iḏārī, Bayān, II, 23–24; al-Maqqarī, Nafḥ, I:281. Given the process of textual transmission within the Arabic sources, it is possible and even quite useful to consider later sources, even al-Maqqarī’s Nafḥ, written in the seventeenth century, as reliable historical sources to work with.
7 Dār al-Islam designates the lands where Muslims are free to practice their religion, whereas Dār al-Harb represents those territories ruled by non-believers.
8 Webb, Creating Arab Origins.
9 Reconquista is a modern term used to designate the period of military conflict between Christians and Muslims in Iberia from 711 to 1492, ending with the conquest of Granada and the expulsion of non-Christians.
10 Menéndez Pidal, “El rey Rodrigo en la literatura,” and “Sobre la Crónica Pseudo-Isidoriana;” Gómez-Moreno, Iglesias Mozárabes, and “Las primeras crónicas;” Simonet, Historia de los mozárabes; Sánchez Albornoz, “Una crónica asturiana perdida?” Investigaciones, and Orígenes de la Nación.
11 Christys, Christians in al-Andalus, 144–45; Reeves, Visions of Unity, 16, 153–94. Martinez-Gros, L'idéologie omeyyade, and Safran, The Second Umayyad Caliphate, focus on Umayyad political and religious legitimacy and seem to grant little attention to the pre-Islamic past as a political discourse of legitimacy in the tenth century.
12 According to Christys, “‘Made by the Ancients’,” 387 and 392, Muslims saw the footprints of the Ancients in al-Andalus, but were unable to interpret them through historical sources, referring to the Ancients “without being conscious that they were following in them.”
13 This historiographical model has been widely discussed and reformulated, however, the role of al-Andalus in the process of recovery has not yet been properly considered. See the introduction by Gil, Crónicas asturianas; Escalona, “Family Memories;” García Sanjuán, “Al-Andalus en la historiografía,” and La conquista islámica; Fancy and García Sanjuán, What Was the Islamic Conquest?
14 The idea has its roots in the works of Paulus Orosius and Isidore of Seville and it was formulated at the Fourth Council of Toledo of 633, which indicated that the fratricidal struggles of the nobles and kings to seize the throne was a sacrilege that could provoke anger from heaven. See García Sanjuán, “Las causas de la conquista,” 104–05, n.7.
15 “In truth, holy God, our innumerable sins deserve this great evil, but now we all ask you with supplications: now look mercifully at your afflicted servants (Hoc peccata malum grande merentur uere nostra, Deus, plurima, sancte; sed nunc suppliciter poscimus omnes, iam Clemens fámulos aspice tristes).” Blume, Hymnodia gothica, 282–83, n° 206.
16 Chronicle of Moissac, 290; Menéndez Pidal, “El rey Rodrigo en la literatura,” 171–72.
17 The Table of Solomon, probably a Christian object for liturgical purposes, was found in Toledo during the conquest and it exemplifies the fabulous booty obtained. See Hernández, La Península, 208–48. Ḏū l-Qarnayn is translated as “he of the two horns,” perhaps in relation to the ancient iconography in which Alexander the Great was represented with the ram's horns of Amun. About the figure of Ḏū l-Qarnayn in the Muslim world, see Marín, “Legends on Alexander;” Doufikar-Aerts, Alexander Magnus Arabicus.
18 Dakhlia, “Des prophètes à la nation,” 241–67, 243–45; Marín, “Legends on Alexander.”
19 Picard, “Le passé antique;” Clarke, The Muslim Conquest, 69–83. On the Greek myths applied to the Iberian Peninsula and the Strait, see López Pardo, “Los héroes civilizados;” Janni, “Los límites del mundo.”
20 Pérez Marinas, “Regnum gothorum y regnum hispaniae.”
21 Balaguer, Las emisiones, n° 30; Manzano, Conquistadores, emires y califas, 59.
22 Balaguer, Las emisiones; Frochoso, Los feluses; Canto, “Las monedas de la conquista.”
23 Caballero Zoreda, “Un canal;” Caballero and Utrero, “El ciclo constructivo,” 131–34, 137. The new chronologies assigned to a number of churches traditionally dated to the Visigothic period by Luis Caballero and his team are still a matter of debate amongst the Spanish academic community. Regarding this debate see, García Sanjuán, “La formación de la doctrina legal,” 133–38; Moreno, “De Toledo a Oviedo.”
24 Ibn Ḥayyān, Muqtabis, ed. Makkī, 227; Escudero, Morena, Vallejo, and Ventura, “Las murallas de Córdoba,” 207–08.
25 Al-Nuwayrī, Historia de los musulmanes, I:9. Montejo and Garriguet, “El Alcázar andalusí;” León and Murillo, “El complejo civil,” 417–18; León, “Técnicas constructivas mixtas,” 11–12, associates the archaeological transformations attested to in the Alcázar to a later chronology, though indicating that “remiten a unos contextos muy similares a los documentados en el arrabal emiral de Saqunda.”
26 Ibn Ḥayyān, Muqtabis, ed. Makkī, 234–35; Al-Maqqarī, Nafḥ, I, 467; Murillo, “La almunia,” 471.
27 Ventura, “Los acueductos romanos,” 125–26; Murillo, “La almunia,” 462–63, 468, n.69. A dirham coined in AH 155 / 772 CE was found in a canal that would have connected with the Roman aqueduct of Valdepuentes; see Morena, “Nuevas aportaciones,” 165.
28 Flood, “Appropriation as Inscription,” 127.
29 Ewert and Wisshak, Forschungen zur almohadischen Moschee; Cressier, “Les chapiteaux de la grande Mosquée,” and “El acarreo,” 311, 318–19; Peña, “Análisis del reaprovechamiento,” 263–64, 268–69, and Estudio de la decoración, 210.
30 Peña, “Análisis del reaprovechamiento,” 263–64, 268–69, and Estudio de la decoración, 174. The later reform of the mosque by ‘Abd al-Raḥmān II increased the number of columns to 222, surpassing the Dome of Rock in Jerusalem and the mosque in Qayrawān, in Tunisia. Peña, Estudio de la decoración, 171–73, 195.
31 Patrologia Latina, t. 83, col. 1118. The Chronicle of Moissac, 290 states: “The Goths were defeated by the Sarracens, and thus ended the reign of the Goths in Spain and in less than two years the Sarracens subjected almost all of Spain (Gothi debellati sunt a Sarracenis, sique regnum Gothorum in Spania finitur et infra duos annos Sarraceni pene totam Spaniam subiciunt.)”
32 Escalona, “Family Memories,” 229–30; Pérez Marinas, “Regnum gothorum y regnum hispaniae.”
33 There seems to be evidence of the development of a chronicle that narrated the end of the Visigothic kingdom, from Wamba to the Islamic conquest, and another chronicle of the Asturian kings from Pelagius to Alfonso II. Recognizable fragments of these two chronicles are found, for example, in the so-called Annales Portucalenses Veteres, a collection of short chronicles compiled in the twelfth or thirteenth century in northern Portugal. These are differentiated in the Asturian chronicles as the Chronicle of Albelda and the Chronicle of Alfonso III; composed from diverse sources, between them they go back to the time of Alfonso II. See David, “Annales Portucalenses,” 324–25; Díaz y Díaz, “La historiografía hispana;” Pérez Marinas, “Las obras de las crónicas de Alfonso III.”
34 Ruiz de la Peña and Sanz Fuentes, Testamento de Alfonso II, 87–88.
35 Isla Frez, “Consideraciones,” “Los dos Vitizas,” “Monarchy and Neogothicism,” and “Identidades y goticismo;” García de Castro, “Notas sobre teología política,” 160; Escalona, “Family Memories,” 231 and 233.
36 For an opposing interpretation highlighting Visigothic continuity in the Asturian Kingdom from the very early eighth century, see Bronisch, Reconquista und Heiliger Krieg, 115–18; Montenegro and Del Castillo, “The Alfonso II Document.” On the debate, see Moreno, “De Toledo a Oviedo.”
37 Ruiz de la Peña and Sanz Fuentes, Testamento de Alfonso II.
38 Utrero and Sastre, “La reutilización,” 312, n.20, 316–17, 321–22. In the church of Santianes, the baptismal font appears to be late Roman. Also the church of Santullano, as part of the palace complex of Oviedo, reused capitals and columns. In the church of San Tirso late Roman capitals were reused. See Arias Páramo, El arte de la Monarquía, 48–53; García de Castro, Arqueología Cristiana, 300, 314–15; Díez Tejón, Prerrománico, 35; Borge, “La basílica de San Tirso;” Domingo Magaña, “La revalorización,” 288–91. The chronology of these churches has recently been questioned by Luis Caballero and his team, dating them not during the reign of Alfonso II, but during the second half of the ninth century or even the tenth, and therefore the reused pieces might also correspond to these dates: Utrero, “La basílica de San Julián,” 33–35, and “Asturias después de Asturias;” Murillo Fragero, “San Tirso el Real de Oviedo,” 43; Moreno, “De Toledo a Oviedo.”
39 Schlunk, Las cruces de Oviedo, and “Los entalles romanos;” Arias Páramo, El arte de la Monarquía, 88–90, 252, and “Recurso a los spolia,” 219–22; Salcedo Garcés, “Los entalles romanos;” Cid Priego, “Las gemas romanas.”
40 “This sign safeguards the pious. This sign conquers the enemy.” A recent and relevant analysis on the political and ideological meaning given to this Cross of the Angels and to the later Cross of Victory commissioned by Alfonso III can be found in Alonso Álvarez, “The Cruces Gemmatae.”
41 Manzano Moreno, “Las fuentes árabes;” Conquistadores, emires y califas, 35–38, and “La rebelión de los astures,” 281–83.
42 Ibrahim, “Nuevos documentos.”
43 For the author and his work, see Makkī, “Egipto y los orígenes,” 189–200; for a study and edition of Ibn Ḥabīb, Kitāb al-Taʾrīj, by J. Aguadé, 15–108.
44 Among the sources used by Ibn Ḥabīb are the biography of the Prophet, the Sīra, by Ibn Hishām (d. AH 212–218 / 828–833 CE) or the Kitāb al-magāzī of al-Wāqidī (d. AH 297 / 822 CE), as well as traditions attributed to al-Layṯ b. Sa'd (d. AH 175 / 791 CE). Ibn Ḥabīb accepted these works, or studied under the authors first-hand during his stays in Medina and Egypt, AH 208–210/823–825 CE. See Makkī, “Egipto y los orígenes,” 197–200, and “Ensayo sobre las aportaciones orientales,” 9–10, 179–231; Ibn Ḥabīb, Kitāb al-Taʾrīj, 100–07; García Sanjuán, La conquista islámica, 196–99.
45 Filios, “Legends of the Fall,” and “A Good Story Well Told.”
46 The story of the Closed House has been analyzed by Hernández, La Península, 194–208. See Ibn Ḥabīb, Kitāb al-Taʾrīj, 140; Ibn ‘Abd al-Ḥakam, Futūḥ, 234; Ibn al-Qūṭiyya, Taʾrīj, 7/5; Fatḥ, 12–13/7–8; Ibn ‘Iḏārī, Bayān, II, 3; al-Ḥimyarī, Rawḍ, 34, 393/10 and 158; al-Maqqarī, Nafḥ, I, 242–43.
47 Ibn Ḥabīb, Kitāb al-Taʾrīj, 397; Makkī, “Egipto y los orígenes,” 205–07; König, Arabic-Islamic, 154–56.
48 Nora, “Between Memory and History.” These crowns convey memories and legitimacies related to the kings of Toledo, and recall the aforementioned case of ‘Abd al-‘Azīz who was murdered just after the Islamic conquest under the accusation of having converted to Christianity and attempted to restore the Regnum Gothorum.
49 The treasure of Guarrazar was composed of twenty-six votive crowns and gold crosses found in Guarrazar, near Toledo, between 1858 and 1861. Some items were later stolen, and only a few of them are now held by museums, primarily the Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid. See Perea, El tesoro de Guarrazar.
50 Crónica Mozárabe del 754, 56–58; Ibn Ḥabīb, Kitāb al-Taʾrīj, 427; Arce, Esperando a los árabes, 90; Clarke, The Muslim Conquest, 89–92.
51 The ideology of Neogothicism, discussed in greater detail below, was developed in the Kingdom of Asturias at the end of the ninth century, claiming their right, as rulers descending from Visigothic kings, to recover al-Andalus.
52 Acién, Entre el feudalismo; Fierro, “Cuatro preguntas,” and “Hafsun,” 16, 18–20; Manzano, Conquistadores, emires y califas, 317–59.
53 Gil, “Judíos y cristianos.”
54 Ibn Ḥabīb, Kitāb al-Taʾrīj, 443–467 and introd. Aguadé, 88–100.
55 Martín Viso, “Espacios sin estados,” and “Integración política.”
56 Brett, The Rise of the Fatimids; Manzano, Conquistadores, emires y califas.
57 Muḥammad b. Waḍḍāḥ, K. al-Bida’ (Tratado contra las innovaciones), by Fierro, 11–57. For al-Khiḍr, see Omar, “Khidr in the Islamic Tradition;” Ferhat, “Réflexions sur al-Khadir.”
58 Published together as Crónicas asturianas by Gil, Moralejo, and Ruiz de la Peña, with an introduction and study.
59 Akhbār Maŷmū’a, 13–14; Ibn ‘Iḏārī, Bayān, II, 10; al-Maqqarī, Nafḥ, I, 263; Crónica de Alfonso III: 8 (Sebastianense). See also Manzano, “La rebelión de los astures,” 281–83.
60 Crónica Albeldense, XIX, 3–4; Crónica de Alfonso III, 13. Isla Frez, “Consideraciones,” “Monarchy and Neogothicism,” and “Identidades y goticismo;” Escalona, “Family Memories;” 231; Pérez Marinas, “Las obras de las crónicas de Alfonso III.”
61 Julius Honorius, Cosmografía, in Geographi Latini Minores, 21–24; Crónica Albeldense, I; Isidore, Etymologiae XIV, 4, 28; Crónica Albeldense, II.
62 Isidore, Etymologiae XIV, IV, 28 and IX, 2, 109.
63 Crónica Albeldense, IX-X; Gil, “Judíos y cristianos,” 79–88.
64 Crónica Albeldense, XIII-XV; Crónicas asturianas, introd. Gil, 95–100.
65 Ibn Ḥazm, Jamharat ansāb al-ʿarab, 502.
66 Crónica de Alfonso III, 25. Lorenzo Jiménez, La dawla de los Banū Qasī, 186–88.
67 Einhard, Epistola 12, in Epistolae Karolini Aevi, III, 115–16; Manzano Moreno, Conquistadores, emires y califas, 327–28.
68 Ibn Ḥabīb, Kitāb al-Taʾrīj, 445, introd. Aguadé, 96; Fierro, “Cuatro preguntas.”
69 Ibn Ḥayyān, Muqtabis, II-I, transl. Makkī and Corriente, 285–89; Ibn ‘Iḏārī, Kitāb al-bayān, trans. Fagnan, 136; Alba and Feijoo “Defensas urbanas,” 103; Álvarez Martínez, “Los accesos al recinto,” 235–40.
70 Wasserstein, “Inventing Tradition,” 291–96; Fierro, “Cuatro preguntas,” 250–55, and “Hafsun,” 21–22.
71 Crónica de Alfonso III, 25–26.
72 Doerr, “Memory and Culture;” Harris, “It Takes a Tragedy;” Anton, “Cultural Memory;” Rigney, “Remembering Hope.”
73 Acién Almansa, Entre el feudalismo; Manzano Moreno, Conquistadores, emires y califas, 354–59.
74 Martín Viso, “Espacios sin estados,” and “Integración política.”
75 Ibn Ḥayyān, Muqtabis V, 142, transl. 169; Martinez-Gros, L'idéologie omeyyade; Safran, The Second Umayyad Caliphate; Manzano Moreno, Conquistadores, emires y califas.
76 Beltrán Fortes, “La colección arqueológica;” Beltrán Fortes et al., Los sarcófagos romanos, 126–44; Vallejo, La ciudad califal, 136 and 238; Calvo Capilla, “Madinat al-Zahra’ y la observación,” “Ciencia y adab,” and “The Reuse of Classical Antiquity.”
77 Beltrán Fortes, “La colección arqueológica;” 110; Vallejo, La ciudad califal, 236.
78 Ibn Ḥayyān, Muqtabis VII, trans., García Gómez, 68 and 153; Ibn ‘Iḏārī, Bayān, ed. Huici Miranda, 158–9/64. Vallejo, La ciudad califal, 178 and 262.
79 Sources refer to the ancients ruins of Italica, Mérida, or Sagunto as “marvels” (‘ajā’ib) and “ruins of the ancients” (āṯār al-’Awā’il): Crónica del moro Rasis, 36–37 regarding the Roman theatre at Sagunto; the aqueducts in Mérida, Crónica del moro Rasis, 71–72 and Al-Bakrī, K. al-masālik, 1519/34–5, or a female statue found at Italica: Al-Bakrī, K. al-masālik, 1517/34.
80 Shaw, Possessors and Possessed, 38–39.
81 Thus Augustus was said to have built the Roman bridge in Córdoba: Ibn ‘Iḏārī, Bayān, II, 14/22; Al-Maqqarī, Nafḥ, I, 157, 481; Julius Caesar founded and Augustus erected several monuments: Isidore of Seville, Etym. XVI, I, 71; Al-Bakrī, K. al-masālik, 1514/31–3; al-Ḥimyarī, Rawḍ, 58–9/25; al-Maqqarī, Nafḥ: I, 157/I, 55. Monuments and ruins were also associated with Hercules: Al-Bakrī, K. al-masālik, 1496/20.
82 Latin inscriptions are mentioned to illustrate the primitive history and ruins in Mérida (Crónica del moro Rasis, 72–76; al-Ḥimyarī, Rawḍ: 518-9/213) or to identify one of the churches built by Reccared in Guadix (Granada) (Crónica del moro Rasis, 258; Al-Bakrī, K. al-masālik: 1522; al-Ḥimyarī, Rawḍ: 124 and 394/71, and 161).
83 Levi della Vida, “La traduzione;” Crónica del moro Rasis, ed. Catalán and De Andrés; Molina, “Sobre la procedencia,” and “Orosio y los geógrafos;” Kitāb Hurūšiyūs, ed. Penelas; Sahner, “From Augustine to Islam.”
84 Molina, “Reseña de Nicola Clarke,” 611; García Sanjuán, “Territorio y formas de identidad,” 139.
85 Al-Bakrī, K. al-Masālik, 1487/15, trans. Vallvé, “Fuentes latinas,” 252–53; Ducène, “Al-Bakrī et les Étymologies,” 390–91; Al-Ḥimyarī, Rawḍ, 32/4.
86 Crónica del moro Rasis, 118–68.
87 Nora, “Between Memory and History;” Basu, Ned Kelly as Memory Dispositif, 1–18; Erll and Rigney, Mediation, Remediation.
88 Isidore of Seville, Etym. IX, 2, 109, XII, 98, 1 and XIV, IV, 28; Vallvé, “Fuentes latinas;” Ducène, “Al-Bakrī et les Étymologies.”
89 Jiménez de Rada, De rebus Hispaniae; Alfonso X, Primera crónica general.
90 Molina, “Reseña de Nicola Clarke,” 611; García Sanjuán, “Territorio y formas de identidad,” 139.
91 Ibn Ḥayyān, Muqtabis V, 142/155.
92 Ibn Ḥayyān, Muqtabis V, 180/206; Crónica del moro Rasis, 159–60.
93 K. Hurūšiyūs refers to the episodes of Viriathus and Numantia but, unlike al-Rāzī, the Arabic translation of Orosius follows the Latin text with no mistakes or changes: Orosius, Hist.: V, 4, 1–5, 12–4 and 7, 1–18; K. Hurūšiyūs: 255, 257, n° 5–7, 10, 12, and 262–3, n° 28–32.
94 Ibn Ḥayyān, Muqtabis V, 180/206; Crónica del moro Rasis, 159–60.