The Mediterranean World
 

[301] Of the many authors who have written on the medieval Mediterranean world as an interacting system of societies and cultures, two have produced works of particular merit for the interweaving of economic and cultural themes. S. D. Goitein's many studies based on the documentation originally contained in the Cairo Geniza have proved of enormous utility in establishing the economic system of the Islamic world of the high middle ages, as well as illuminating many aspects of medieval technology, society, and culture which, although based on material of Jewish provenance, still provide an accurate reflection of a generalized culture shared by the urban middle class throughout the Islamic world. Goitein himself notes the paucity of Spanish economic documents in the Geniza collections, a lack which is surprising in view of the prominent share which Andalusi wares held in Islamic Mediterranean markets. The lack of documentation seems to have reflected the association of Andalusi Jews with the Babylonian synagogue in Cairo, whereas the Geniza documents emanated from the Palestinian congregation.⁽¹⁾
Nevertheless, enough Spanish material intrudes itself to suggest that the patterns described were as typical of Andalusi as of North African society. Of relevance to Spain is A Mediterranean Society, of which two volumes (of a projected three) have appeared thus far. The first -- Economic Foundations (Berkeley, 1967) -- contains much material relevant to Andalusi participation in the Islamic world economy, as well as to the store of techniques common to all countries of the Islamic Mediterranean. The second volume -- The Community (Berkeley, 1971) -- contains information on the position of ethnic minorities in the Islamic world, directly relevant to the Andalusi situation, which was, of course, faithful to norms general throughout Islam. In Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders (Princeton, 1973), Goitein provides translations of a number of Andalus' documents, plus numerous passing references to Spanish commercial products which provide a vivid enough picture of the place of al-Andalus in a wider commercial framework. Also important for the general economic and cultural background [302] of the period are Goitein's Studies in Islamic History and Institutions (Leiden, 1966).

The works of Maurice Lombard also relate to the place of Spain, particularly Islamic Spain, in the medieval economy. His collected essays, Espaces et réseaux du haut moyen âge (Paris-The Hague, 1972), deal with general economic history, but always within an explicit geographical framework wherein the axial role of Spain is clear. Of particular significance is his discussion of the timber trade, wood having been the primary energy source of medieval technology. His more popular book, L'Islam dans sa première grandeur (VIIIe-XIe siècle) (Paris, 1971), also highlights al-Andalus as an integral sector of the medieval Islamic world.

The Iberian Middle Ages

The disjunction between Islamic and medieval studies in the Spanish academic tradition has meant that works of a general nature usually survey one culture or the other: there is no survey covering both Christian and Islamic Spain written by an Islamist and those written by medievalists tend to give inadequate coverage to Islamic society.

A number of recent works stress social or cultural continuities spanning the Islamic conquest of 711. Harold Livermore, The Origins of Spain and Portugal (London, 1971), views both Visigothic and Islamic political organization as embroiderings of Roman themes. A. Barbero and M. Vigil, Sobre los orígenes sociales de la reconquista (Barcelona, 1974), stress the continuity between Cantabro-Basque tribal structure and the emergent societies of the western Christian kingdoms. Ignacio Olagüe, in a book which first appeared in French with the provocative title Les arabes n'ont i'amais envahi I'Espagne (Paris, 1969), asserted that there was no true invasion but rather a rapid, mass conversion of Hispano-Romans to Islam, a religion in harmony with supposedly dominant theological trends of a unitarian (i.e., adoptionist) nature. A Spanish version appeared later, with the footnotes that were lacking in the original and a new title: La revolució6n islámica en occidente (Barcelona, 1974). See Pierre Guichard's. response, "Les arabes ont bien envahi l'Espagne: Les structures sociales de l'Espagne musulmane," Annales, 29 (1974), 1483-1513. Although Olagüe's views on conversion and social structure cannot be taken seriously, his comments on historical climatology are interesting and well-informed.

[303] Among surveys by medieval historians are Luis G. de Valdeavellano, Historia de España: De los orígenes a la baja edad media (Madrid, 1952; 5th ed., 1973), which extends through the twelfth century only, and his Curso de historia de las instituciones españolas (Madrid, 1968; 3rd ed., 1973). Vaideavellano's approach is institutional and political. More sensitive to economic developments is José Angel García de Cortázar, La época medieval (Historia de España Alfaguara II) (Madrid, 1973; 2nd ed., 1974). The coverage of al-Andalus by both authors is perfunctory. Also covering both societies is José Antonio Maravall, El concepto de España en la edad media, 2nd ed. (Madrid, 1964), a masterful analysis of the changing geographical, political, and cultural meanings of the concept of Spain.

Al-Andalus

Two recent histories of Spanish Arabism make it clear that before the present decade there was virtually no social history of al-Andalus, previous workers in the field having concentrated almost wholly on narrative political history and on various aspects of Islamic culture, particularly literature and philosophy. These studies are James T. Monroe, Islam and the Arabs in Spanish Scholarship (Leiden, 1970), and Manuela Manzanares de Cirre, Arabistas españoles del siglo XIX (Madrid, 1972).

The standard history of al-Andalus through the fall of the Caliphate is E. Lévi-Provençal, España musulmana hasta la caida del califato de Córdoba, trans. E. García Gómez, 2nd ed. (Madrid, 1957) published as volume IV of the Historia de España directed by Ramón Menéndez Pidal. Volume V of the same series includes "Instituciones y vida social e intelectual," by Lévi-Provençal -- an updated version of L'Espagne musulmane au Xème siècle (Paris, 1932) - and "Arte califal" by Leopoldo Torres Balbás. Lévi-Provençal's narrative, drawn from Arabic chronicles, is still useful, but he did not fully appreciate the tribal nature of Andalusi society in the eighth and ninth centuries, nor was he able to describe accurately the mechanism of conversion and its rate.

Three shorter works also provide adequate overviews: Henri Terrasse, Islam d'Espagne: Une rencontre de l'Orient et de I'Occident (Paris, 1958); Juan Vernet, Los musulmanes españoles (Barcelona, 1961); and W. Montgomery Watt, A History of Islamic Spain (Edinburgh, 1965). For the post-caliphal period there are a number of studies on individual [304] Party Kingdoms: Andrew Handler, The Zirids of Granada (Coral Gables, Florida, 1974); three studies by Hady, Roger Idris, all of which are basic to an understanding of Berber politics in eleventh-century al-Andalus -- "Les Aftasides de Badajoz," Al-Andalus, 30 (1965), 277-290; "Les Birzâlides de Carmona," ibid., 30 (1965), 49-62; "Les Zîrîdes d'Espagne," ibid., 29 (1964), 39-137. See also Manuel Terrón Albarrán, El solar de los Aftásidas: Aportación temática del reino moro de Badajoz, siglo XI (Badajoz, 1971). For the Berber invasions, see J. Beraud-Villars, Les Touareg au pays du Cid: Les invasions Almoravides en Espagne aux XIe et XIIe siècles (Paris, 1946) and Roger LeTourneau, The Almohad Movement in North Africa in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Princeton, 1969). A useful collection of medieval texts, mainly Islamic, is Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz, La España musulmana, 3rd ed. (Madrid, 1973).

The entire countenance of Andalusi studies has been altered substantially by the publication of Pierre Guichard's A1-Andalus: Estructura antropológlca de una sociedad islámica en occidente (Barcelona, 1976). Heretofore no scholar had grasped the tribal nature of Andalusi society, particularly in its first two centuries, as a result of which the social structure was misunderstood and misrepresented. Moreover, in attacking the thesis of cultural continuity between pre- and post-711 Hispanic societies, Guichard is able to demonstrate that Umayyad society in Spain was a normative Islamic one in which indigenous elements were assimilated to dominant Arab-Berber norms and not the reverse.

The new edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, 4 vols- to date (Leiden, 1960- ), contains a wealth of information on all aspects of Andalusi culture and society in biographical and thematic articles by Lévi-Provençal, Ambrosio Huici Miranda, Charles Pellat, Hussain Mones, D. M. Dunlop, Fernando de la Granja, and other specialists.

The cultural geography of al-Andalus is well-represented in the literature because it reflects a genre of medieval Arabic literature, the "Books of Routes and Kingdoms" (Masâlik wa-mamâlik). See La péninsule i'bérique au moyen-âge d'après le Kitâb ar-rawd al-mi'târ fî habar al-aktâr d'ibn 'Abd al-Mun'im al-Himyarî, ed. E. Lévi-Provençal (Leiden, 1938); and al-Saqundî, Elogio del Islam español, trans. E. García Gómez (Madrid-Granada, 1934). On geopolitical terminology, see Gamâl 'Abd al-Karîm, Al-Andalus en el "Mu'yam al-buldân" de Yâqût (Sevilla, 1972), and Jacinto Bosch Vilá, "Algunas consideraciones sobre el-Tagr en al-Andalus y la división político-administrativo en la España musulmana," [305] in Etudes d'Orientalisme dédiées a ... Lévi-Provençal, 2 vols.(Paris, 1962), I, 23-33.

The place of Berber Culture and society in medieval Spain is now receiving its just share of attention. On settlement, see Bosch Vilá, "El elemento humano norteafricano en la historia de la España musulmana," Cuadernos de la Bibioteca Española de Tetuán, 2 (1964), 17-37; Guichard, "Le peuplement de la région de Valencia aux deux premiers siècles de la domination musulmane," Mélanges de la Casa de Velazquez, 5 (1969), 103-156; and Jaime Oliver Asín, "En torno a los orígenes de Castilla," Al-Andalus, 38 (1973), 319-391. The last two studies are inventive attempts to reconstruct early patterns of Berber settlement (in Valencia and Old Castile, respectively), primarily on the basis of placenames.

In economic history, there are the detailed but unanalytical volumes of S. M. Imamuddin, The Economl'c History of Spain (Under the Umayyads) (Dacca, 1963) and Some Aspects of the Socio-Economic and Cultural History of Muslim Spain, 7II-1492 A.D. (Leiden, 1965). A sampling of significant economic data is found in E. Ashtor, "Prix et salaires dans l'Espagne musulmane aux Xe et XIe siècles," Annales, 20 (1965), 664-679. On markets and their role in the Andalusi economy, see Pedro Chalmeta Gendrón, El señor del zoco en España (Madrid, 1973), but note Ashtor's critique in Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale, 19 (1976), 280-283. On the agricultural economy, see Andrew M. Watson, "The Arab Agricultural Revolution and its Diffusion, 711-1100," Journal of Economic History, 34 (1974), 8-35, as well as Lucie Bolens' thesis, cited below.

On the development of Andalusi culture, with emphasis on the contributions to it of Arabia, Egypt, and Iraq, there is the seminal work of Mahmûd 'Alî Makkî, Ensayo sobre las aportaci- ones orientales en la España musulmana y su influencia en la formación de la cultura hispano-árabe (Madrid, 1968). Makkî's work bears the same relation to cultural history as Guichard's does to social history, since it illustrates the normal functioning of a regional culture within a wider Islamic sphere. On eastern influences in the Zaragoza region, see Bosch Vilá, El oriente árabe en el desarrollo de la cultura de la marcea superior (Madrid, 1954). On Islamic law and its Andalusi interpreters, see Abdel Magid Turki, "La veneration pour Mâ1ik et la physionomie du Mâlikisme andalou," Studia Islamica, 33 (1971), 41-65, and [306] Hussain Mones' important social delineation of Umayyad jurisprudents, "Le rôle des hommes de religion dans l'histoire de l'Espagne musulmane jusqu'à la fin du Califat," ibid., 20 (1964), 47-88. Andalusi Islam is analyzed from the standpoint of the sociology of knowledge in two important articles by Dominique Urvoy: "Une étude sociologique des mouvements religieux dans l'Espagne musulmane de la chute du califat au melieu du XIIIe siècle," Mélanges de la Casa de Velazquez, 8 (1972), 223-293, a methodologically innovative reconstruction of the social networks of religious scholars, and "Sur 1'évolution de la notion de gihâd dans l'Espagne musulmane," ibid., 9 (1973), 335-371. Henri Pérès, La poésie andalouse en arabe classique au XIe siècle (Paris, 1937), presents valuable information across the entire spectrum of cultural interests, particularly literary reflections of Andalusi geography. On Neo-Muslim cultural nationalism, see James T. Monroe, The Shu'ûbiyya in al-Andalus: The Risâla of Ibn García and Five Refutations (Berkeley, 1970). On "feudalism," Chalmeta, "Le problème de la féodalité hors de l'Europe chrétienne: Le cas de l'Espagne musulmane," II Coloquio Hispano-Tunecino (Madrid, 1972), pp. 91-115. On the Jewish community, Eliyahu Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1973-79).

Christian Spain

Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz' important monographs on social, institutional, and economic history have been reissued in two collections: Estudios sobre instituciones medievales españolas (Mexico, 1965), and Investigaciones y documentos sobre las instituciones hispanas (Santiago de Chile, 1970). Articles on social and economic conflict in León and Castile by Reyna Pastor de Togneri have been collected in Conflictos sociales y estancamiento económico en la España medieval (Barcelona, 1973). On Catalonia, see Pierre Bonnassie, La Catalogne au milieu du Xe à la fin du XIe siècle, 2 vols. (Toulouse, 1975-1976), and Ramon d'Abadal, Dels visigots als catalans, 2 vols. (Barcelona, 1970). The basic study of Spanish feudalism is Valdeavellano, "Las instituciones feudales en España," in F. L. Ganshof, El feudalismo (Barcelona, 1963), pp. 229-300. On the social and cultural ambience of eleventh-century Castile Ramón Menéndez Pidal's La España del Cid, 2 vols., 5th revised ed. (Madrid, 1956) is still evocative.

[307] An innovating attempt to synthesize medieval economic trends is Antonio Ubieto, Ciclos económicos en la edad media española (Valencia, 19619). The emergence of markets is the subject of Valdeavellano, El Mercado en León y Castilla durante la edad media, 2nd revised ed. (Sevilla, 1975). On the role of Muslim tribute in the eleventh-century economy, see José María Lacarra, "Aspectos económicos de la sumisión de los reinos de Taifas (1010-1102)," in Homenaje a Jaime Vicens Vives, vol. I (Barcelona, 1965), pp. 255-279. On land use in high medieval Aragon and Catalonia respectively, see Lynn H. Nelson, "Land Use in Early Aragón: The Organization of a Medieval Society," Societas, 3 (1973), 115-127, and José E. Ruiz Domenec, "Una etapa en la ocupación del suelo: La roturación de tierras en la Cataluña vieja durante el siglo XI," Hispania, 33 (1973), 481-517. On Castilian field systems, see Jesús García Fernández's basic study, "Campos abiertos y campos cercados en Castilla la Vieja," in Homenaje a ... Amando Melón y Ruiz de Gordejuela (Zaragoza, 1966), pp. 117-131, an article originally published in Annales, 20 (1965), 692-718. On the relationship between agricultural development and incipient urbanization, Ruiz Domenec, "The Urban Origins of Barcelona: Agricultural Revolution or Commercial Development?" Speculum, 52 (1977), 265-286. On pastoral economy, there is the old but still useful study of Julius Klein, The Mesta: A Study in Spanish Economic History (Cambridge, Mass., 1920; reprint ed., 1964), and Pastor, "Ganadería y precios: Consideraciones sobre la economía de León y Castilla (siglos XI-XIII)," Cuadernos de Historia de España, 35-36 (1962), 37-55. An introduction to the communications infrastructure is Gonzalo Menéndez Pidal, Los caminos en la historia de España (Madrid, 1951), pp. 37-79 ("Edad media").

The absence of studies of ecclesiastical domains had formed one of the major lacunae in medieval Spanish economic history. In the last decade, however, numerous domain studies have appeared. Among the most useful are Eufemià Fort i Cogul, El senyoriu de Santes Creus (Barcelona, 1972); José Angel García de Cortázar, El dominio del monasterio de San Millán de la Cogolla (siglos X a XIII) (Salamanca, 1969); and Salustiano Moreta Velayos, El monasterio de San Pedro de Cardeña: Historia de un dominio monástico castellano (902-I338) (Salamanca, 1971). Also interesting, but with less economic content, are Justiniano Rodríguez Fernández, El monasterio de Ardón (León, 1964); Maria del Carmen [308] Pallares and Ermelindo Portela Silva, El bajo valle del Miño en los siglos XII y XIII (Santiago de Compostela, 1971); and María del Pilar Yáñez Cifuentes, El monasterio de Santiago de León (Barcelona, 1972).

The complex processes of conquest and settlement are delineated in the multiple-author volume, La reconquista española y la repoblación del pais (Zaragoza, 1951). On the early phases, see Sánchez-Albornoz, "Repoblación del reino asturleonés. Proceso, dinámica y proyecciones," Cuadernos de Historia de España, 53-54 (1971), 236-459, and Despoblación y repoblación del valle del Duero (Buenos Aires, 1966). His thesis that the Duero Valley had been totally depopulated was contested by R. Menéndez Pidal, "Repoblación y tradición de la cuenca del Duero," Enciclopedia linguístics hispánica, vol.I (Madrid, 1960), pp. xxix-lvii. For the juridical problem of presura, see Ignacio de la Concha, La presura (Madrid, 1946). On the demographic structure of early settlement, see María del Carmen Caré, "Migraciones de corto radio," Cuadernos de Historia de España, 49-50 (1969), 117-134. J. M. Lacarra studies settlement along the pilgrimage route in "La repoblación de las ciudades en el camino de Santiago: Su trascendencia social, cultural y económica," in Luis Vázquez de Parga, José M. Lacarra, and Juan Uría Ríu, Las peregrinaciones a Santiago de Compostela, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1948-1949), I, 465-497.

On later stages of settlement see, on Toledo, Reyna Pastor, "Poblamiento, frontera y estructura agraria en Castilla la Nueva (1085-1230)," Cuadernos de Historia de España, 47-48 (1968), 171-220, and Del Islam al cristianismo: En las fronteras de dos formaciones económico-sociales: Toledo, siglos XI-XIII (Barcelona, 1975). The latter work is significant inasmuch as the author is the first of Sánchez-Albornoz' school to admit the reality of acculturative processes and to seek a balanced account, although her understanding of Islamic society is inadequate to the task. On Valencia, there is Robert I. Burns' cycle: The Crusader Kingdom of Valencia: Reconstruction on a Thirteenth-Century Frontier, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1967); Islam under the Crusaders: Colonial Survival in the Thirteenth-Century Kingdom of Valencia (Princeton, 1973); and Medieval Colonialism: Postcrusade Exploitation of Islamic Valencia (Princeton, 1975). On Murcia, Juan Torres Fontes, Repartimiento de la huerta y campo de Murcia en el siglo XIII (Murcia, 1971), and his comparative analysis of Castilian and Aragonese settlement policy, "Jaime I y Alfonso X, dos criterios de repoblación," VII Congreso de Historia de la Corona [309] de Aragón, vol. II (Barcelona, 1962), pp. 329-340. On Seville, Julio González, Repartimiento de Sevilla, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1951).

The standard history of Jews is Yitzhak Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1961), which is a reliable guide to the internal development of the Jewish community, the activities of "Court Jews," and royal policy, but which gives few clues as to the daily interactions between Jews and Christians. Valuable in this regard are J.Rodríguez Fernández, La judería de la ciudad de León (León, 1969), and A. Carlos Merchan Fernández, Los judios de Valladolid (Valladolid, 1976).

On French settlement and influence, see Marcelin Defourneaux, Les français en Espagne au XIe et XIIe siècles (Paris, 1949); Manuel Alvar, "Historia y linguística: Colonización franca en Aragón," Festschrift Walther von Wartburg, vol. I (Tübingen, 1968), pp. 129-150; and J. M. Lacarra, "A propos de la colonisation 'franca' en Navarre et en Aragó," Annales du Midi, 65 (1953), 331-342. On monastic interrelationships, see Ch. Higounet, "Un mapa de las relaciones monásticas transpirenaicas en la edad media," Pirineos, 7 (1951), 453-552; and, on the influence of Cluny, Antonio Linage Conde, Los origenes del monacato benedictino en la península ibérica, 3 vols. (León, 1973), II, chapter 7.

Urbanism

A survey of the entire peninsula is E. A. Gutkind, Urban Development in Southern Europe: Spain and Portugal (New York, 1967). This volume is especially valuable for its reproductions of town maps, but the critical apparatus is incomplete. The structure and functions of Andalusi cities have been studied in numerous articles by Leopoldo Torres Balbás. A synthesis of his work, based almost wholly on previously published articles, was published posthumously under the editorship of Henri Terrasse as Ciudades hispanomusulmanas, 2 vols.. (Madrid , no date), but the footnotes have been stripped down from their original form to the extent that references are difficult to follow. Therefore, the original articles are preferred. See, in particular, "Plazas, zocos y tiendas de las ciudades hispanomusulmanas," Al-Andalus, 12 (1947), 437-476; "Los contornos de las ciudades hispanomusulmanas," ibid., 15 (1950), 437-486; "Estructura de las ciuadades hispanomusulmanas: La medina, los arrabales y los barrios," [310] ibid., 8 (1953), 149-177; and "Extensión y demograía de las ciudades hispano musulmanas," Studia Islamica, 3 (1955), 35-59.

A survey of urban history in Christian Spain is J. M. Lacarra, "Panorama de la historia urbana en la península ibérica desde el siglo V al X," in Estudios de alta edad media espahola (Valencia, 1971), pp. 25-65. The basic institutional study is Valdeavellano, Sobre los burgos y los burgueses de la España medieval (Madrid, 1960), republished in 1969 under the title Origenes de la burguesia en la España medieval. Among studies of individual Christian towns of particular merit are two by Armando Represa which delineate urban morphology in the context of changing social patterns: "Genesis y evolución urbana de la Zamora medieval," Hispania, 32 (1972), 525-545, and "Evolución urbana de León en los siglos XI-XIII," Archivos Leoneses, 23 (1969), 243-282. On the latter town also see Sánchez-Albornoz, Una ciudad de la España cristiana hace mil años: Estampas de la vida en León, new ed. (Madrid, 1966). On Salamanca, see Manuel González García, Salamanca: La repoblación y la ciudad en la baja edad media (Salamanca, 1973).

Technology

The only survey of medieval Spanish techniques is Juan F. Riaño's old but still useful catalog, The Industrial Arts in Spain (London, 1879). A very suggestive treatment of Spain's place in a broader, Mediterranean/ North African technological sphere is included, along with valuable information on harnessing techniques, in Richard W. Bulliet, The Camel and the Wheel (Cambridge, Mass., 1975).

Various studies cover individual technologies. On glass, there is Alice W. Frothingham, Spanish Glass (New York, 1964). On pottery, see Luis M. Llubiá, Ceramica medieval española, 2nd ed. (Barcelona, 1973), a manual whose sources are difficult to trace. Still informative is G. J. Osma, Los maestros alfareros de Manises, Paterna y Valencia, 2nd ed. (Madrid, 1923). Three articles by Juan Zozaya introduce new methodological perspectives: "Red-Painted and Glazed Pottery in Western Europe: Spain," Medieval Archaeology, 13 (1969), 133-136; "El comercio de al-Andalus con el oriente: Nuevos datos," Boletín de la Asociación Española de Orientalistas, 5 (1969), 191-200; and "Ceramicas medievales del Museo Provincial de Soria," Celtiberia, 21 (1971), 211-222. On paper, see Josep Ma. Madurell i Marimon, El paper a les terres catalanes: Contribució a la seva [311] historia, 2 vols. (Barcelona, 1972); and Oriol Valls i Subirà, "Caracteristiques del paper de procèdencia o escola àrab en els documents del Reial Arxiu de la Corona d'Aragó, IV Congreso de Historia de la Corona de Aragón, vol. III (Barcelona, 1962), pp. 319-329.

On hydraulic techniques, see Thomas F. Glick Irrigation and Society in Medieval Valencia (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), and the chapter devoted to Spain by Norman Smith, Man and Water (New York, 1975), pp. 19-27. On the noria there are two comprehensive articles by Julio Caro Baroja: "Norias, azudas, aceñas," Revista de Dialectología y Tradiciones Populares, 10 (1954), 29-160, and "Sobre la historia de la noria de tiro," ibid., II (1955), 15-79. A more disjointed account, but one rich in technical details, is Thorkild Schiøler, Roman and Islamic Water-Lifting Wheels (Copenhagen, 1973). A study of mills which includes social as well as technological material is Jean Gautier-Dalché, "Moulin à eau, seigneurie, communauté rurale dans le nord de l'Espagne (IXe-XIle siècles)," in Etudes de Civilisation Médiévale: Mélanges oferts à Edmond-René Labande (Poitiers, 1974), pp. 337-349.

Various articles by Miguel Gual Camarena are filled with technological information, including "Para un mapa de la industria textil hispana en la edad media," Anuario de Estudi os Medievales, 4 (1967), 109-168; "El comercio de telas en el siglo XIII hispano," Anuario de Historia Económica y Social, I (1968), 85-106; and "El hierro en el medioevo hispano," in La mineria hispana e ibero-americana, vol. I (León, 1970), pp. 275-292. On medieval machines, see Caro Baroja, "Sobre maquinarias de tradición antigua y medieval," Revista de Dialectología y Tradiciones Populares, 12 (1956), 114-175. On clocks, see José Sánchez Pérez, La personalidad cientifica y los relojes de A1fonso X el Sabio (Murcia, 1955), and Thomas F. Glick, "Medieval Irrigation Clocks," Technology and Culture, 10 (1969), 424-428. A model study tracing a technique through philological investigation is Jaime Oliver Asín, "Quercus en la España musulmana," Al-Andalus, 24 (1959), 125-181, dealing with cork technologies.

Science

The history of science in medieval Spain was pioneered by José María Millá Vallicrosa, whose shorter monographs are collected in two volumes, Estudios sobre historia de la ciencia española (Barcelona, 1949), and Nuevos estudios sobre historia de la ciencia española (Barcelona, [312] 1960). Much of his later work was presaged in his important study of the Arabic sources of science at the tenth-cen'ury monastery of Ripoll, Assaig d'història de les idees físiques i matemàtiques a la Catalunya medieval (Barcelona, 1931). Also, see his studies of Andalusi astronomy and the translation movement, Estudios sobre Azarquiel (Madrid-Granada, 1943-1950), and Las traducciones orientales en los manuscritos de la Biblioteca Catedral de Toledo (Madrid, 1942). For a critical appreciation of Millás' work, see Thomas F. Glick, "José María Millás Vallicrosa and the Founding of the History of Science in Spain," Isis, 68 (1977), 276-283. Millás' interest in the practice of science in al-Andalus is continued by his disciple Juan Vernet. See his study, "La ciencia en el Islam y Occidente," in L'Occidente e l'Islam nell'alto medioevo, vol. II (Spoleto, 1965), pp. 537-572, the relevant chapters of his Historia de la ciencia española (Madrid, 1975), and his articles on Andalusi scientific figures in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 14 vols. to date (New York, 1970- ). For a comprehensive study of the Andalusi aeronomical school, see Lucie Bolens' perceptive analysis, Les méthodes culturales au moyen-âge d'après les traités d'agronomie andalous: Traditions et techniques (Geneva, 1974).

There are numerous accounts of the translation movement. An older, but still valuable, study is Charles H. Haskins, "Translators from the Arabic in Spain," in Studies in the History of Medieval Science, reprint ed. (New York, 1960), pp. 3-19. Gonzalo Menéndez Pidal wrote two important studies on the mechanisms of transmission: "Cómo trabajaron las escuelas alfonsíes," Neuva Revista de Filologia Hispánica, 5 (1951), 363-380, and "Los llamados numerales árabes en occidente," Boletín de la Real Academia de. Historia, 145 (1959), 179-208. An important monograph on the impact of Arabic astrology on Christian scientific thought, which also contains many insights on the translation process, is Richard Lemay, Abû Ma'shar and Latin Aristotelianism in the Twelfth Century: The Recovery of Aristotle's Natural Philosophy through Arabic Astrology (Beirut, 1962). Lemay attempts to sketch the social and cultural dimensions of translation in "Dans l'Espagne du XIIe siècle: Les traductions de l'Arabe au Latin," Annales, 18 (1963), 639-665. Some of his more speculative conclusions are analyzed by Sánchez-Albornoz, "Observaciones a unas páginas de Lemay sobre los traductores toledanos," Cuadernos de Historia de España, 41-42 (1965), 313-324. Part of this discussion concerns the identity [313] of John of Seville, concerning whom see Lynn Thorndike, "John of Seville," Speculum, 34 (1959), 20-38.

The history of one manuscript tradition is the subject of César E. Dubler, La "Materi'a Médi'ca" de Dioscorides: Transmissión medieval y renacentista, vol. I (Barcelona, 1953). On the transmission of chemistry, see Robert Steele, "Practical Chemistry in the Twelfth Century," Isis, 12 (1929), 10-46. On medicine and pharmacology, see Michael R. McVaugh's introduction to Arnald of Vilanova, Aphorismi de gradibus (Granada, 1975), and Luis García Ballester, Historia social de la medicina en España de los siglos XIII al XVI, vol. I (Madrid, 1976). The diffusion of scientific instruments is the subject of Marcel Destombes, "La diffusion des instruments scientifiques du haut moyen âge au XVe siècle," Cahiers d'Histoire Mondiale, 10 (1966-1967), 31-51.

Philology and Linguistics

On the development of the peninsular Romance languages there is the classic study by Ramón Menéndez Pidal, Orígenes del español, 2nd ed. (Madrid, 1929). Kurt Baldinger, La formación de los dominios linguísticos en la península ibérica, 2nd ed. (Madrid, 1972), surveys the recent research. The structure of Andalusi Arabic is studied by Federico Corriente, A Grammatic Sketch of the Spanish Arabic Dialect Bundle (Madrid, 1977). R. Dozy, Supplément aux dicitonnaires arabes, 2nd ed. (Leliden, 1927), is not only a lexicon of Andalusi Arabic but also contains many useful historical references. On the impact of Arabic on Castilian, see Eero K. Neuvonen, Los arabismos del español en el siglo XIII (Helsinki, 1941). The Atlas linguístico y etnográfico de Andalusia, Manuel Alvar, ed., 5 vols. to date (Granada, 1961- )contains a wealth of information pertaining to Arabic usages in Andalusia.

There are also useful studies of the vocabulary of different technologies. On agriculture, see Julio Fernández-Sevilla, Formas y estructuras en el léxico agricola andaluz (Madrid, 1975). On textiles, see Jesusa Alfau de Solalinde, Nomenclatura de los tejidos españoles del siglo XIII (Madrid, 1969), and Gerald J. MacDonald, "Spanish Textile and Clothing Nomenclature in -án, -í, and -ín," Hispanic Review, 44 (1976), 57-78.

There are numerous studies of historically significant place-names. Among the most useful are Miguel Asín Palacios, Contribución a la [314] toponimia árabe de España, 2nd ed. (Madrid, 1944); Arnald Steiger, Toponimia árabe de Murcia (Murcia, 1958); Juan Vernet, "Toponimia arábiga," in Enciclopedia Linguística Hispánica, vol. I (Madrid, 1960), pp. 561-578; and Francisco Marsá, "Toponimia de roconquista," ibid., pp. 615-646. Hermann Lautensach, Maurische Züge im geographischen Bild der Iberischen Halbinsel (Bonn, 1960), is a study of the geographical distribution of Arabic place-names.

The Polemic of Spanish History

Américo Castro's great work, which first appeared under the title España en su historia (Cristianos, moros y judios) (Buenos Aires, 1948), subsequently was reelaborated in successive editions in Spanish and English, each one of which reflected further elaborations of the theme. The next stage was represented by La realidad histórica de España (Mexico City, 1954), which included a number of new and rewritten chapters and appeared in English as The Structure of Spanish History (Princeton, 1954). Reviews of the 1954 editions were collected under the title La realidad histórica de España: Juicios y comentarios (Mexico City, 1957). Realidad reappeared in a much revised version, the edición renovada of 1962, on which was based the final elaboration which appeared in English as The Spaniards (Berkeley, 1971). Among the critical commentaries on Castro's work are Guillermo Araya, Evolución del pensamiento histórico de Américo Castro (Madrid, 1969) and José Luis Gómez-Martinez, Américo Castro y el origen de los españoles: Historia de una polémica (Madrid, 1975).

Although the brunt of Castro's argument fell in an area which has been a major topic of anthropological discussion for fifty years -- acculturation -- he spawned a generation of intellectual historians who were illiterate in the social sciences and as a result have been unable over the past twenty-five years to advance the discussion much past Castro's original insight. See for example the volume of Collected Studies in Honour of Americo Castro's 80th Year (Oxford, 1965), where none of the authors seems able to deal with cross-cultural problems at a conceptual level. On the relevance of acculturation studies, see Thomas F. Glick and Oriol Pi-Sunyer, "Acculturation as an Explanatory Concept in Spanish History," Comparative Studies in Society and History, II (1969), 136-154. The major research breakthroughs in this period have originated with [315] Arabists who were knowledgeable in Romance material -- for example, S. M. Stern's work on poetry; J. M. Millás Vallicrosa in the history of science; P. Chalmeta on economic institutions.

Sánchez-Albornoz's reply to Castro was España: Un enigma histórico, 2 vols. (Buenos Aires, 1956). It is this work, permeated with his notions of "temperamental inheritance," that I have found fault with in the present book. His institutional studies, by contrast, are relatively free from the same kind of bias, at least overtly. Yet, Sánchez-Albornoz's approach to Arabic documentation is so bizarre that it must cast doubt on his interpretations of source material. Pedro Chalmeta has rightly noted that his hypercritical method of analyzing Arabic texts is inappropriate inasmuch as he relies upon translations.⁽²⁾ For examples, see the sections devoted to Arabic historiography in Investigaciones sobre historiografia hispana medieval (Siglos VIII al XII) (Buenos Aires, 1967). But the problem lies not only with his method of textual analysis but with questionable assumptions regarding the nature of Arabic sources themselves. He asserts that, for example, the early sources concerning the Islamic invasion were written by non-Hispanized Arabs who were prone to accept fables as true, while the later chronicles were infused with realism and reason because they were written by "Islamic historians, either of Spanish origin or already saturated with Hispanism."⁽³⁾ I cannot accept a genetic criterion for historiographical probity.

A relatively objective essay on Romance elements in Andalusi culture and Christian borrowing of Islamic elements, El islam de España y el occidente (Madrid, 1974), was originally presented by Sánchez-Albornoz at the Spoleto seminar on the high middle ages in 1964 (L'Occidente e l'Islam nell'alto medioevo, Spoleto, 1965, pp. 149-308). In the discussion of this presentation, S. M. Stern took strong exception, not to Sánchez-Albornoz's data, but to the conclusions drawn from them. Stern questioned the logic of taking individual traits as representative of a "Spanish genetic heritage," recalling that Islamic civilization in Iran was likewise inflected with elements of a local culture. To this, Sánchez-Albornoz replied that Stern had erred in neglecting "as unworthy of a historian the study of the projection of the idiosyncratic heredity of each historical community within the national line."⁽⁴⁾ Sánchez-Albornoz's latest polemical volume, El drama de la formación de España y los españoles: Otra nueva aventura polémica (Barcelona, 1973), seems to have been stimulated by the steady erosion of a once unanimous consensus of medieval-ists [316] in his favor, such defections here identified as seductions by Castro's deformed ideas. He notes with alarm the intrusion of Castro's influences in recent works (p. 12), recites (as if to refute Castro one final time) another list of indelibly "Spanish" traits (p. 24), and then concludes that Castro's madness was owing to his "Jewish ancestry" (pp. 98, 104). Sánchez-Albornoz's work is surveyed by José-Luis Martín, "El occidente español en la alta edad media según los trabajos de Sánchez-Albornoz," Anuario de Estudlos Medievales, 4 (1967), 599-611.

1. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, I, 21.

2. Pedro Chalmeta, "Historiografía medieval hispana: Arabica," Al-Andalus, 3-7 (1972), 354.

3. Sánchez-Albornoz, España: Un enigma histórico, I, 221.

4. The exchange, in French, is reproduced in L'Occidente e l'Islam nell'alto medioevo, pp. 379-385.