Spanish scholarship of this century and the last has elaborated two rival views of culture contact between Al-Andalus and Christian Spain. One tradition descends from Francisco Javier Simonet, the nineteenth-century historian of the Mozarabs of Granada, to Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz, who views the Islamic invasion as a catastrophe that deflected Spain from her true historic path. This orthodox judgment denies the influence of Islamic culture upon the Christians and stresses instead the eternal Iberian blood coursing in the veins of most Andalusí Muslims. The second tradition includes the works of Richard Ford, the English hispanist and polygraph, Francisco Fernández y González, the Spanish arabist -- both predecessors of the contemporary theory of Américo Castro -- and a host of local histories that have interpreted Spanish culture largely as a product of the Islamic heritage. The local historians, in whom a strong costumbrista element predominates, have in fact been the strongest and most faithful of the pro-Muslim band. Irrigation historians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have drawn inspiration from both schools, as well as from the ever [150] burgeoning literature of archeology, which advances both Roman and pre-Roman claims.

In the Middle Ages the irrigation system was generally recognized as an Islamic inheritance (see Chapter XIII). The provisions of the fueros that the irrigated areas were to be restricted to pre-Reconquest bounds and that the customs of distribution were to be unchanged from those of the Moors were accepted literally and almost universally. While perceptive irrigators did on occasion point out that customs had in fact changed through time, and that a process of modification could therefore be discerned, the nearly unanimous judgment of medieval society was that the principles of distribution and most of the physical plant antedated the Reconquest. In the sixteenth century, however, widespread repugnance of things Moorish and a desire to repudiate the infidel past led to a bifurcation between popular tradition, which to this day ascribes a Moorish paternity to all that is venerable, and a semilearned scholarship the aim of which was to assert the purity of Spanish Christian culture and deny all Islamic influence. What the medieval irrigator had held true the sixteenth-century scholar rejected.

Baltasar Ortiz de Mendoza, writing in 1589, devoted the first chapter of his Claridad de la acequia de la villa de Elche ⁽¹⁾ to the question of who, Moors or Christians, were the originators of the division of the waters of that town, and "of what might be the origin of a hilo [measurement unit] of water's coming in a turn of thirty-six days." Ortiz, in seeking to refute the generally held proposition that Muslims had devised the irrigation system of Elche, argued that both the institutions of distribution and the canals themselves antedated the Muslims and could be shown to be of Christian foundation:

Many have been of the opinion that the order set down in the books of names of the direct lords of the water of this [151] town was a Moorish invention, which cannot be proven, but, rather, the contrary [is true], owing to many and diverse reasons. Three proofs and arguments will suffice those who believe that truth ought to prevail, which, when heard, I believe should accord to the Christians both victory and reason.

Since in a trial both sides must be heard, it is proper to inquire how these books came to be, and whether this be as I have heard alleged, that some of the divisors have Arabic names, such as Alingasa, Atufá, and Palombar. ⁽²⁾

To those [who so allege] I reply that Spain was first Christian before it was Moorish, and already [before Spain was Moorish] there were acequias through which the water ran. Thus when [the Moors] took possession they found at Alingasa a stand of pear trees, and thus they called it "divisor of the pear-grove." And at Atufá they found an apple-grove, and they named it "divisor of the apple-grove." And in Alausa they found an almond tree and therefore called it "divisor of the almond tree." And at the divisor of El Palombar there was a dovecot wherein many doves were raised, and for this reason it was given this title.

Leaving aside the rest [of the names of the divisors] which had their names given them of old since they are twenty-five in number, simply because the Moors changed four names the argument that the Moors must be the authors who signed the above-mentioned register of books is not convincing. [The second proof is that the books are ordered according to the Dominical letters, which is clearly a Christian custom.]

The last reason by which is excluded the possibility that this method [of distributing water] might be Moorish is that this order is holy and just in that all have equality without causing strife, nor do some have more rights than others. And [since] it is certain that in their [Islamic] sect there is nothing good, clearly it is demonstrated that the said register of books is the invention of Christians and not of Moors, as some have understood it. ⁽³⁾

Despite its anti-Muslim bias, this passage is notable for its centering of scholarly discussion on Arabic toponyms and on aspects of the institutions of distribution. In another section, [152] Ortiz carries the etymological argument further by insisting that "acequia is a Valencian word; its etymology is 'where it is guided' [donde ella es guiada, that is, a se guia(?)]." ⁽⁴⁾
 

All of the major nineteenth-century writers on Spanish irrigation were convinced of Islamic origins. The basic supposition accepted by them all is strikingly similar, though more naïvely stated, to that proposed today by the proponents of hydraulic theories of civilization. It is that the requisite of any large and complex irrigation system, comprising river barrages and large main canals, and hydraulic devices such as siphons and aqueducts, is a stable centralized government with enough wealth and control over labor to construct such a system. Simply stated, the assumption was that a great work must have been built by a great king.

The roots of this attitude toward public works are modern, or in any case not medieval. It is typical of the central authority's attitude toward such projects that in medieval Valencia a "Royal Canal" was not one built by the king but one from which he received revenue. Nevertheless, at least by the eighteenth century royal participation seemed implicit in any large irrigation project. Benito Feijóo, discussing the providence of rivers in an essay entitled "The Honor and Bounty of Agriculture," asserted:

It is true that this providence is most laborious and costly. It requires, for the most part, intelligence superior to that which farmers have and more money than that which individuals have. Farmers can only give information concerning the sites which stand in need of the benefits of irrigation and concerning the local rivers. The possible use of the water of these is a matter for experts in Geometry and Hydrostatics. And, finally, the cost must be met either by the Prince or the Public, respectively, of the territory which is to receive the benefit. Application and zeal for the common good can conquer all. ⁽⁵⁾

Borrull looked to the time of the Muslims for the system's beginnings. There is no need even to guess, for James I tells us himself, in his fueros, that Valencian irrigation custom dates from the time of the Saracens. It would have been easy to ascertain which princes were responsible for the system, if only the Arabic manuscripts (those of the Escorial) had not been burned. ⁽¹¹⁾ The dates of the foundation of the system had therefore to be ascertained by deduction. It could not have occurred before the tenth century because too much energy had been diverted to warlike endeavors such as the conquest of France; nor could it have taken place after the tenth century, for beginning with Almanzor most of the energies of the Andalusis were absorbed in wars with the Christians. Borrull concluded that the only possible period for the system's creation was during the reign of [154] 'Abd al-Rahman III (912-961), who put an end to civil strife, and that of his son, al-Hakam II (961-976). In explaining whether the father or the son played the most important role, Borrull deduced that the father must have ordered the initial studies and begun the works that were finished in the fifteen-year reign of the son. ⁽¹²⁾

Underlying Borrull's argument throughout is the supposition that public works projects at any time and in any society always are carried out in the same way, that is, in the manner of early nineteenth-century Spain. Such projects are initiated by royal order, studied by a commission, planned by an engineer, and finally executed with public funds. He knew, moreover, that no such works were possible if the central authority has been involved in war:

It follows also that war, far from yielding funds to be employed in [agricultural improvements], consumes all the funds of the state and obliges the princes to seek loans to sustain it. Experience proves this; and should we question a witness as authoritative as our own monarch, he would answer us in the context of the Royal Order of May 19, 1819, that is, "that the six-year war which the monarchy waged has left the state without resources to finance the costly works of the acequias." Far less could the Saracen monarchy have had them in the first and third epochs [of Muslim rule] in which it maintained, with notable valor, war not only with different Christian princes but also with its own vassals, not for six years, but for the lengthy period of three centuries. ⁽¹³⁾

After forming his theory, Borrull found support in Josef Antonio Conde's Historia, in which can be found several indications of agricultural improvements, without benefit, however, of indication of sources. ⁽¹⁴⁾ The coincidence of nearly a century of peace with the rule of two great monarchs (the test of greatness was the meriting of elegies) was conclusive for Borrull. Upon this reasoning, and not upon any documentary evidence, stood a theory that gained immediate and general acceptance in the nineteenth century and official recognition even in the twentieth. [155] (In 1960 a celebration commemorating the "Millennium of the Waters" was held in Valencia, indicating public recognition of the establishment of the irrigation system and specifically of the Tribunal of Waters in the reign of 'Abd al-Rahman III). ⁽¹⁵⁾ In the years intervening between the publication of Borrull's discourse and the millennial celebration, however, no new light had been shed upon the history of irrigation in Al-Andalus.)

Soon after Borrull's Discurso was printed a copy reached the hands of a French provincial official, François-Jacques Jaubert de Passa. ⁽¹⁶⁾ Jaubert entered into correspondence with Borrull ⁽¹⁷⁾ and in the years 1816-1819 made an extensive tour of eastern Spain, gathering information for a study of irrigation law commissioned by the Société Royale d'Agriculture of Paris. The results of his studies were published in 1823 ⁽¹⁸⁾ and a Spanish translation appeared in 1844. ⁽¹⁹⁾ Jaubert introduced his study with some general remarks on the history of agriculture in Spain, citing in passing some of the more distinguished Iberian-born agricultural writers: Columella and several Arabs, notably ibn al-'Awwâm. ⁽²⁰⁾ The sum of his investigations convinced him "that only one people (the Arabs) have known the soil of Spain perfectly, and the proof of this will become more perceptible as I approach the center of their empire and the places which have been subject to their rule for the longest period of time." ⁽²¹⁾ The study begins with a review of the irrigation districts of Catalonia, which had been subject only minimally to Islamic rule, and proceeds down the coast to the highly islamized regions of the kingdom of Valencia.

Nevertheless, there is no greater precision in Jaubert's discussion than there was in Borrull's. He attributed to the Moors, for example, the building of the Canal of the Arches in Manises ⁽²²⁾ and likewise the redaction of some of the ordinances of the Quart Canal. Although he cited no documental evidence, his reasoning concerning the conservativeness of agrarian law is worthy of note:

The ordinances of Cuarte [Quart] Canal are still in part owing to the Moors, and their antiquity, though most worthy [156] of attention, can be explained very easily. In effect, rural laws ought to be more permanent and obligatory than civil and criminal law; for this stability is always the product of time and experience. They are established without resistance only owing to the good offered and as a consequence of the unanimous consent of all those whom they protect. Civil laws, on the other hand, are dependent upon cultural progress. Useful to the generation which receives them, they are often contrary to the interests of the succeeding generation; and history shows us that a nation needs not even a hundred years to change and even corrupt its customs. For this reason, the kingdom of Valencia, poor in civil laws, would be poorer still were it not for the rural laws which it has. ⁽²³⁾

The method followed by commentators throughout the rest of the century was to accept Borrull's basic proposition as obvious and then to support or embellish it with etymological evidence and, in a few cases, comparisons with contemporary irrigation in Islamic countries.

Of all nineteenth-century writers on Spain, Richard Ford was the most deeply convinced of the Islamic substratum of the Spanish culture that he observed and described in all its aspects. "Spain," he wrote, "first civilized by the Phoenicians, and long possessed by the Moors, has indelibly retained the original impressions. Test her, therefore, and her natives by an Oriental standard." ⁽²⁵⁾

Nowhere did he apply his standard more eloquently than in a brilliant gloss on Borrull in the section of his Handbook for Travellers in Spain devoted to Valencia.

The whole system of artificial watering is Oriental and Moorish, as the still existing technical names and machinery prove: thus the common and most picturesque noria  [157](Arabicé, anaoura) is the Cairo sáckiyeh, or large water-wheel, which, armed with jars. descends into the well, and as it rises discharges the contents into a reservoir. The Egyptian "shadoof," the pole and bucket, or galley-pump, such as is seen in our market gardens near Hammersmith, is also very frequent.

In the Huerta of Valencia, a main-trunk artery or principal canal, "mucannalin," supplies all the smaller veins, acequias, "ciquia," of the circulation: this is managed in a reticulated net-work of minute ramifications, and dams, azudas -- sudd. The idea is simple, but the execution is most difficult; and often the greatest triumph of the hydraulist is where his works are least apparent. The chief object was to secure a fair distribution, so that none should be left dry, none overflooded. Thus when the engineer ceased, the legislator began, and both were Moorish. The supply was divided into days of the week and hours of the day. The owner of each plot knew his appointed period and was ready to receive his share. Since water here, as in the East, is the life blood of the soil, and equivalent to fertility and wealth, the apportionment becomes a constant source of solicitude and contention. Similar instances are recorded in the Old Testament, and rivalry has been well derived from Rivus, the bickering about water-brooks; so wells in Genesis xxvi were named Esek, contention, and Sitnah, hatred. Accordingly, in this irritable climate, where the knife is always ready, precautions have long been taken to keep the peace. The regulating tribunal, de los acequieros, or del riego, said to have been instituted by the Moor, Aihaken Almonstansir Billar [sic], was wisely retained by Jaime I. It is truly primitive and Oriental: seven syndics or judges are chosen by each other, out of the yeomen and irrigators, the labradores y acequieros of the Huerta; they sit at 12 o'clock every Thursday, in the open air, on benches at La puerta de los apostoles, at "the gate" of the cathedral; all complaints respecting irrigation are brought before these Solomons and decided in a summary way. There must be no law's delay, for water here gives daily bread, and if the suit went into our Court of Chancery, land and cultivators would be ruined; time accordingly is saved by prohibiting the use of pen, ink, and [158] paper; there are no bills and answers, no special pleadings. In this -- oh rare court of common sense! -- no attorneys are allowed to practise, no barristers are allowed to obfuscate the plain matter-of-fact. The patriarchal judges understand the subject practically, and decide without appeal; the discussion is carried on viva voce in public and in the "Lemosin," or the dialect of the people: consult for curious details the Memorias of Fro. Javier Borrull. ⁽²⁶⁾

In the mid-1860's, several Englishmen motivated primarily by interest in Indian irrigation problems journeyed to Spain in order to report on techniques and institutions which might be of use to the British government in the subcontinent. Foremost was Sir Clements Markham, geographer, historian, translator, and an expert in the history and culture of another great irrigation society, Inca Peru. ⁽²⁹⁾ Markham's delightful Report on the Irrigation of Eastern Spain (1867) was based upon his own observations -- guided in Valencia by the historian and costumbrista Vicente Boix, ⁽³⁰⁾ who accompanied him to some of the irrigation works and helped him understand "the scarcely intelligible Lemosin of the villagers," and the bibliophile, Pedro Salvá, owner of "the finest library in the city." ⁽³¹⁾

Markham's second chapter, devoted to the "Moorish origin of works of irrigation in Eastern Spain," is little more than an elaboration of some of the themes developed by Borrull: the periods of strife and internal dissension after the period 760-960 "were not times for originating public works, though the irrigation system that had been instituted in the days of the caliphs was perpetuated and confirmed under the succeeding dynasties, until, when the Christian conquerors appeared in the thirteenth century, it recommended itself for adoption, backed by the [159] experienced benefits of five hundred years." He did, however, distinguish between eastern Spain (Valencia and Murcia) and the kingdom of Granada, where the public authority continued to push forward with mining and irrigation works well after decadence had overcome the rest of Al-Andalus. Yet, Granada lacked, for Markham, the prime interest of Valencia and Murcia, namely the "interesting series of local rules and customs which are met with in connection with the more ancient systems established in Murcia and Valencia." ⁽³²⁾ Then, too, the chief object of the Granada water supply system was not the irrigation of crops but the provisioning of the fountains and baths of the capital.

Markham was more original in his description of the reservoir systems of Elche and Alicante, which interested him greatly, first because of their similarity to the tank systems of the Madras Presidency in India and, second, because sure proofs of their Arabic origin could -- he thought -- be adduced. In Elche the arabism of hydraulic toponyms was the key to his argument:
"The names of these partidores give more distinct proofs of the Arabian origin of the irrigation system of Elche than could be obtained either from traditions or even from written chronicles. I obtained these names from the mouths of millers and cultivators who live on the banks of the channels and use their water; and I am indebted for the following explanations of their meaning to that eminent Arabic scholar, the Rev. George P. Badger." ⁽³³⁾ Markham's interest in Islamic Spain dated from 1855, while he was still working on the manuscript of his book Cuzco and Lima and before he had embarked on the cinchona expedition. He thus began the study of Arabic with a Lebanese Maronite named Joseph Churi and was said to have "soon mastered the verbs." ⁽³⁴⁾ But by the time he reached Spain some ten years later his Arabic was not up to the task, and he had to rely upon his friend the Reverend Mr. Badger ⁽³⁵⁾ for the deciphering of the unusual and Oriental-sounding place names. Badger's etymologies suffer from excessive enthusiasm, lack of knowledge of Andalusí Arabic, and ignorance of Catalan: he derived Forat (Catalan "hole") from the Arabic farat -- plenty, superfluity -- [160] and Aval (Catalan "down," that is, lower or downstream) from awwal, first. ⁽³⁶⁾ The pitfalls of trying to stretch a word to fit a thesis are clear from the following brave attempt: "Candaliz. There is an Arabic word, one of the rare instances of a noun with five radical letters, which is something like this -- namely, Khandalis; but, as it means a number of lean camels, it is hardly likely that it can be the name of this channel. Candaliz may be a corruption of Kanz-al-izz, 'the treasure of dignity or happiness.' ⁽³⁷⁾ This uncritical etymologizing was a departure from the usual approach and methodologically was even an advance. ⁽³⁸⁾ In addition, Markham was skeptical about the Borrull thesis, at least as it related to the Tribunal, whose origin, he reported, "is referred, but on doubtful authority, to the reign of the Caliph Alhaken II, A.D. 961-976." ⁽³⁹⁾

The most critical of the mid-century commentators was Maurice Aymard. ⁽⁴⁰⁾ He believed that the emphasis laid on Arabic origins was over-rated, that in any case it was based on a misconception of the nature of Islamic irrigation, and that the crucial developments in Valencian irrigation institutions were subsequent to the Reconquest. Like Markham, Aymard found significance in the difference between Valencian and Granadan institutions. In Granada the system was still "to an exceptional degree the same as in the time of the Moors. . . . [But] one is astonished by the incoherence of the ideas which govern the repartitions. The practice is not in line with the principles. The bonds of association are ill-joined; duties are vague; policing hardly exists; penalties are poorly defined. One feels, in a word, that the synthesizing genius of the Latin race has not passed through there." ⁽⁴¹⁾ If Granada represents a more genuinely "Moorish" stage of development, then the Valencian stage must be the result of post-Islamic refinements:

It is apparently believed by everybody that the Spanish conquerors of the Moors only applied the institutions of their predecessors in matters of irrigation; that the honor of their creation belongs to the Moors; that Spain actually did nothing but inherit a splendid heritage, by which she benefits. . . . But we must reflect on the continual [161]improvements that have been in progress all over the country; on the crude ways yet to be seen in Granada. In every century regulations have been repeatedly revised; and everywhere, in spite of the diversity of fundamental principles, a methodical administration has been obtained, regular, strong, and concentrated. Does this honor belong to the Moors or to the Spaniards? The example of Granada leaves no doubt in our mind on the subject. We find there undisturbed the institutions practiced by the Moors themselves. The work of Loaysa, ⁽⁴²⁾ written but a little while after the conquest. largely by dictation from the old tillers of the soil, may be considered as a photograph of the irrigation practiced by the Moors.

It becomes possible, therefore, to make a sort of comparison between the irrigation institutions of the Moors and of the Spaniards. On the side of the Moors, there is nearly a complete absence of first principles of regulation -- not any centralization, hardly any policing, divisions of water made without fixed plan; surely this was a time when anarchy prevailed. If this anarchy has ceased, it is because the disorder itself, ungoverned by a powerful hand, has become orderly after a long lapse of time.

But this is not the sign by which we recognize good institutions. Such institutions should be good from the first, without the aid of time, without support of power; they should be susceptible of assuring regular working from the start. The systems of Valencia, Alicante, and Murcia, reformed and gradually made anew by the Spaniards, would do this. The system of the Moors, preserved by Granada, would not.

But we must be just to all. Without doubt the Moors irrigated before the Spaniards, but to these latter incontestably belongs the greater part of the honor of those institutions of administration that are admired today.⁽⁴³⁾

Two works written at the end of the 1880's, one by Pedro Diaz Cassou and one by Melchor Beliver and Vicente del Cacho, proposed interesting criteria for the evaluation of the Islamic past of Spanish irrigation. Diaz Cassou, perhaps the most original local historian in nineteenth-century Spain, touched briefly in his works Memoria sobre los riegos de Segura (1877) and La huerta de Murcia (1887) on the Islamic past of the irrigation system, pointing out that the secondary canals with Beni names (Beniaxán, Benialel, and so on) indicated that originally these channels had carried water to tribal lands. With the passage of time collective ownership of the land became individual, but the channels and water continued to be held communally in the domain of the tribe or family. ⁽⁴⁵⁾

In 1889 Diaz Cassou expanded his observations in a sequel to the earlier studies, Ordenanzas y costumbres de la huerta de Murcia. Beginning his discussion with an echo of Borrull, he observed that the largeness and complexity of the Murcian system, with a main channel and subdivisions on either side of the river, "supposes the intervention of the public authority, which did not have sufficient strength except during the reigns of Abder-Rahman III and Al-Hakem II, in whose time canals were dug in Murcia, according to some Arab historian among those translated by Conde." Leaving hypothesis aside, Diaz Cassou then [163] pressed ahead on his own, discussing the taxonomy of the Murcian canals. The area of the huerta cultivated by the Arabs must have been smaller than that presently cultivated. The derivations outside the central core were due to extensions made either by late-arriving tribes (evidently Berber) or by the Christians. The main canals have generic names (such as Aljufia, from the Arabic al-jaufî, northern), while their extensions bear proper names and the patronymics of the tribes responsible for the prolongation of the channels. In the upper part of the huerta and in the center of the valley, the channel names are taken from topographical or geographical characteristics (Algualeja, orchards; Nacar or Nacra, pond, reservoir). On higher grounds, where irrigation was more difficult and where latecoming Muslims were obliged to settle, the canals bear tribal names (mostly Berber, at that), such as Benetucer (Beni Tussef), Benicoto and Benicomay (Beni Komaya), Bendame (Beni Abmad), Zenetes (Zenata). Diaz Cassou warned, however, against reconstructing the history of the huerta on the basis of canal names alone. Many minor toponyms have been disfigured (Al-Ferraira became Herrera, for example), and others were transmuted into pseudoarabisms, as in the case of the divisor originally named Dardallah after the man who built it that became corrupted on the basis of a false Arabic etymology to Ardallah (land of God).

On the basis of these considerations, Diaz Cassou proposed three criteria for establishing the history of the Murcian canal network: 1) Canals with the highest right (those which are not subjected to a turn and in which water always flows, called toma abierta) belong to the nuclear huerta of the epoch of the caliphate. 2) Canals of lesser right that draw water from the river or main canal at certain times only (toma cerrada) had their origin in subsequent concessions of late Islamic or Christian times. 3) In the canals whose first sections are not subject to a turn but whose lower sections are, the latter sections are modern extensions of the primitive channels. ⁽⁴⁶⁾

Diaz Cassou's criteria, based on toponyms and the structure of water rights, bear careful consideration. To my knowledge no one has since attempted to prove or disprove his theory, for [164] such an attempt would involve careful evaluation of the toponyms of the secondary channels in addition to studies of the documentation of early Christian settlement. The names of the derivations of the Vernisa Canal (Gandia) suggest that the structure described by Diaz Cassou may not have been limited to Murcia. On the Pellerias branch of Vernisa four of the six secondary feeders have Beni names, while their tertiary subdivisions have a predominance of romance topographical names (among the subdivisions of Beniopa are Montaña, Palmes, Olivera, and Quintana). ⁽⁴⁷⁾

In the same year that Diaz Cassou published his theory of the development of the Murcian irrigation system, Bellver and Cacho published their treatise, which had won a prize offered by Lo Rat Penat (an erudite society) of Valencia in 1888, on the influence of the Arabs upon the agriculture, industry, and commerce of Castellón de la Plana. ⁽⁴⁸⁾ The primary significance of their work for irrigation history is that it drew broad comparisons between Roman and Islamic agricultural styles and placed irrigation within the broader framework of economic and agrarian organization. Their basic premise was that Islamic rule brought about the replacement of the Roman extensive fallowing regime by an intensive regime of continuous cultivation based upon irrigation. ⁽⁴⁹⁾ While admitting that no concrete proof could be brought to bear upon the problem of Islamic origins, Beliver and Cacho indicated a wide range of secondary evidence in support of their theory. These points -- some plainly more convincing than others -- were, in summary:

1) The selective replacement of Latin terminology with arabisms to indicate irrigation connotations of water-carriers (the arabism acequia replaced the Latin canalis, use of which was subsequently restricted to the sense of "gutter") or the introduction of arabisms where no suitable Latin expression existed (azud, "diversion dam")

2) the wording of the fueros of James I

3) the unanimous opinion of experts, Spanish and foreign alike (Borrull, Conde, Jaubert de Passa)

[165] 4) toponyms such as huerta de los moros

5) the widespread adoption of Arab-introduced hydraulic devices such as norias

6) the preponderance of irrigation agriculture in towns of Islamic foundation

7) the introduction by the Arabs of exotic plant species, most with Arabic names and most requiring irrigation: lupine (altramuz), flat pea (almorta), carob (algarrobo), orange (naranja; Catalan, taronga), date palms, alfalfa, cotton, safron, and so on. ⁽⁵⁰⁾

These data, when added to such other agricultural modifications of great importance as replacement of the ox by the horse as the common plow animal, ⁽⁵¹⁾ add up to an impressive and convincing picture of change in spite of the lack of documentary evidence. ⁽⁵²⁾

Bellver and Cacho's discussion of agriculture concludes with a suggestive and important modification of the hydraulic theory outlined by Borrull. Accepting the generally held proposition that the Golden Age of Andalusí agriculture took place between 940 and 1001 under Umayyad rule, ⁽⁵³⁾ they questioned whether the agricultural renaissance of Islamic Castellón was due to the direct action of the rulers or to the individual efforts of the cultivators themselves: "We dare to risk the assertion that this renaissance was not the result of a plan conceived and executed by the central administration but the result of the slow, but intelligent and tenaciously sustained, striving of some active cultivators who were desirous of deriving from the soil the greatest possible return." ⁽⁵⁴⁾ While accepting the intervention of the Muslim princes in the construction of "the magnificent canals and dams which fertilize the privileged huertas of Valencia, Murcia and Granada," they nevertheless doubted the willingness of any prince to expend interest and capital on the works of "obscure rivers" such as the Mijares and the Palancia. History reveals no intervention by the central authority in the irrigation works of the Castellón area, whose most impressive work, the great siphon which passes underneath the Rambla de la Viuda, is known to have had a purely private origin. As important a [166] departure from the Borrull hypothesis as this is, Beilver and Cacho still seem to have been influenced -- even as Borrull himself had been -- more by the example of the present than by concrete data from the past:

If it was the Caliphs who directly and immediately originated the agricultural improvements introduced in the regional district of Castellón during the Mohammedan period, we can do no more than present them as a model for modern governors who have hesitated to take certain measures favorable to cultivation.

If, on the other hand, their cooperation was limited to conceding opportune permission for the use of wastelands and public waters, whose disposition was in their hands, and the cultivators, either individually or communally . . .were those who conceived and carried out those improvements, we can likewise offer them as an example most worthy of imitation by present-day farmers and proprietors of Castellón, accustomed to expect everything from the tutelary action of the government. ⁽⁵⁵⁾

Indeed, with Diaz Cassou, Bellver, and Cacho the Borrull hypothesis had run its course and was beginning to try severely the patience of serious scholars. Without documentary evidence concerning the role of the Muslims, the hypothesis could not meet the requirements of modern scholarship and was relegated to the guidebook, the magazine, and other organs of popular and semilearned history. In the present century the two traditions have biftircated, the Islam-rejecting tradition having gained the approbation of academic history on the basis of testimony from the two fields best qualified to evaluate whatever evidence existed: Islamic studies and archeology.

The most influential Spanish arabist to turn his attention to irrigation was a member of the generation of 1898, Julián Ribera Tarragó (1858-1934). The critical point raised by the arabists was that Hispano-Arabic sources were almost completely silent on the subject of irrigation: the problem thus became one of evaluating an area of culture for which no documents existed. Ribera, therefore, was duly and harshly skeptical when word reached him of the topic stipulated by the Diputación Provincial of Castellón for the prize later won by Beliver and Cacho. In an article entitled "Mons parturiens" Ribera warned in the strongest possible terms that even the most immense labors expended on the proposed topic could not be expected to bring forth more than a mouse. The first criticism he offered concerned regional history in general and regional history of Al-Andalus in particular: to carry out the assignment the writer would have to know what Castellón had been like both before and after the Islamic invasion. "The mere stating of this proposition," he commented, "seems to me enough to discourage the bravest." The administrative, social, and economic questions which must be asked of Islamic settlement in Castellón could not be answered on the basis of the sources available. Moreover, Ribera scoffed at the tendency of provincial towns to invent illustrious pasts, citing in particular Sueca and Gandia as towns which [168] attacked "anyone who dares to question their hypothetical antiquities." Apropos of the scanty citations in geographical works such as that of Idrisi, Ribera turned to the subject of irrigation with a specific warning: "Let us hope that no one attributes to [Idrisi] that we owe our canals and irrigation system to 'Abd al-Rahman III and Al-Hakam II, because such a thing never occurred to him. If Conde so affirms, he alone knows why; up to now, no qualified person has believed this to be a historical fact, though many have believed it possible." With all the indignation of a scholar whose field had too long been dominated by legend, bias, and facile hypothesis, Ribera knew only too well the kind of evidence which passed for scholarly in the writings of popularizers of Islamic Spain: "Four common places, with their names transliterated in the French style, taken at third or fourth hand, ostentatiously embellished with some nebulous rhetoric, are not going to fool anyone." ⁽⁵⁸⁾

A decade later, while occupied with the phenomena of culture contact and acculturation, Ribera addressed himself to the institutions of the huerta of Zaragoza. In his Orígenes del justicia de Aragón ⁽⁵⁹⁾ he developed a "theory of imitation" to account for the diffusion of elements from Islamic to Christian culture in medieval Spain. ⁽⁶⁰⁾ Asserting first that imitation occurs in direct relation to the ease of intercultural communication, he concluded: "One has only to recall with whom Aragón communicated [that is, Al-Andalus] in order to affirm a priori that it could not fail to make imitations from Islam. Such would have been unavoidable; its geographic position and the well-known characteristics of its history make it clear." ⁽⁶¹⁾ It was altogether consonant with this theory to find evidence of cultural borrowing and continuity in Aragonese customs of irrigation:

If we look from the banks of the Ebro toward the huerta we find the complicated mechanism of irrigation which had to continue [after the Reconquest] with the same organization and regulations; for neither were the conquerors in a position to promulgate rules for matters with which they were scarcely acquainted, nor, even when they were in a [169] position to do so, were these matters susceptible to radical and instantaneous change.

[There was no motive for any immediate change: the Moors remained owners of their properties and lands; they only lost and were uprooted from the houses they had within the walls of the city at the conclusion of one year after the capitulations.]

That they continued along the same paths as before is proven by the fact that for a long time thereafter (and up to the present in some towns of Aragón) the directors of these functions are called zabacequias; and even today the Arabic words adula and ador -- meaning irrigation turns -- are common words in the huerta of Zaragoza, as well as the words acequia, azud, alberca, almenara, etc.; and even the tax or due which is paid conserves the Arabic name of alfarda, which continues being a technical term in foral legislation. ⁽⁶²⁾

Ribera's arguments rejecting Islamic influence in the Valencian case are uneven. He wisely recognized the value of comparative studies, but his choice of Marrakesh as subject was inopportune. Physically it is quite dissimilar from Valencia; it has no river like the Turia, has no well-defined huerta, and is inland, not coastal. Technologically, the difference between irrigation in Valencia and Marrakesh is clear: the Moroccan system is based on conduction of water through subterranean channels (qanats), that of Valencia through surface canals. Legally, the communal institutions of Valencia contrast with private, individual appropriation in Marrakesh. ⁽⁶⁵⁾ Finally, Valencia was not settled by Berbers or Magribi Arabs but by Syrians. Ribera, like Aymard, evidently thought that all Islamic irrigation systems [170] were the same. Had he chosen Damascus for his comparison he would have reached quite different conclusions.

More telling, to continue Ribera's argument, is the silence of Arab historians. Why would they, who expressed "such exaggerated and pompous admiration" for the insignificant, private channels of Marrakesh, remain silent regarding the great public works of Valencia? "No Arab historian of Valencia -- and there are many who were erudite and well-informed, whose works are still read -- says a word about the construction of a single canal. This silence is very significant." Moreover, when water problems appear in legal literature, eastern jurisprudents are usually cited. Then again, the Tribunal of Waters has no equal in Islamic justice, of which individual, rather than collegiate, authority is more typical. ⁽⁶⁶⁾ Ribera concluded that the Arabs when conquering Valencia did as the Christians were later to do: they found an established irrigation system and "had the prudence to respect local traditions." The clear effect that Arab settlement did have was to promote an intensification of cultivation as a response to an increase of population. ⁽⁶⁷⁾

In 1925 Ribera turned once again to the theme of irrigation and combined, although not in a completely satisfactory way, the two threads of origin and continuity.

That which has been said -- that the irrigation of the huerta continued after the conquest just as before in the time of the Moors -- does not authorize the belief that the Moors constructed the canals, nor, much less, that the distribution of their water was administered as democratically or popularly as later became the norm or custom. The individualist and autocratic criterion of public works in the Arab empires and the unitary character of their administrative offices do not permit us to admit that the Muslims of Valencia constructed the canals of the irrigation system, nor less that in the regimen of water, questions would be decided by a collegiate tribunal. ⁽⁶⁸⁾

Twentieth-century arabists have added little to Ribera's views, although some scant new material from Arabic sources has been brought to light. More significant, perhaps, for the course that views on irrigation in this century have taken is the work of the engineer Rafael Valls David, who won a prize in 1897 for his monograph Pallantia. ⁽⁶⁹⁾

Valls David discusses the significance of and elaborates upon the discovery and mapping by Francisco de Paula Jaldero of an ancient network of canals irrigating the Plain of Quart from the Turia, upstream of Valencia. Historiographically, the importance of this discovery was to change the emphasis in irrigation studies from Islamic to Roman and pre-Roman times. Valls David pointed out that if one asks a simple cultivator about the origins of anything old, be it an amphitheatre or an aqueduct, he is sure to reply: "Those ruins are the work of Moors. . . . If we repeat the same question to a half-educated person we can be sure that his answer, upon seeing the ruins blackened by the inclemencies of the weather, will be that those ruins were the works of the Romans. . . ⁽⁷⁰⁾ That is to say, for the one person the oldest thing which he believes to exist is Arabic civilization or domination, and for the other Roman domination." ⁽⁷¹⁾

Valls David was a cultural diffusionist; he pointed out the elusiveness of firm genealogies of such phenomena as aqueducts because few peoples are truly original -- it is dangerous, therefore, to base hypotheses concerning irrigation origins on deductions from what we know of ancient societies. For in truth everyone built aqueducts, and those of Megara and Athens antedated those of Rome. ⁽⁷²⁾ The works in question had been ascribed to the third century B.C. If this was so, thought Valls, they were most probably of pre-Roman construction, for only at the end of that century did the legions arrive in full force. ⁽⁷³⁾ Valls David's work was an augury of the twentieth-century approach: to leave [172] the question of Islamic content up in the air and concentrate on archeological evidence.
 

Although Karl Wittfogel's approach to irrigation has been most influential among anthropologists, it is in essence a historical view and is based on specific historiographical suppositions. Moreover, his use of the Spanish case as an example of the conquest and replacement of a hydraulic society (that of Al-Andalus) by a nonhydraulic one (that of the Christian kingdoms) offers an opportunity to test some of the historical implications of his theory.

In chapter vi of Oriental Despotism Wittfogel characterized Spain as a society that "crosses the institutional divide." The Arabs, as they expanded in the eighth century from the Near Eastern centers of hydraulic society, took with them across North Africa orientally despotic forms of government which they introduced in turn into the Iberian peninsula. Spain, which under the Romans had been only a marginally hydraulic area (having small-scale irrigation with only a few of the institutional trappings of agromanagerial bureaucracy), now became the home of a people familiar with hydraulic agriculture who, in their new habitat, continued using technologies they had successfully employed in their original homelands. As a result, Islamic Spain became more than marginally Oriental. "It became a genuine hydraulic society, ruled despotically by appointed officials and taxed by agromanagerial methods of acquisition." ⁽⁷⁴⁾ Characteristic forms of hydraulic culture, such as the high development of astronomy and mathematics ⁽⁷⁵⁾ and despotic military and civil administrative practices, pervaded Andalusí society.

Turning to the great transition, Wittfogel portrays the Reconquest (from the thirteenth century on) as the transformation of a great, urbanized, hydraulic civilization into a late feudal society. Militarily and administratively, the base of the Reconquest was never "orientalized." ⁽⁷⁶⁾ An economy based on intensive irrigation agriculture was replaced by one of cattle-breeding.

[173] Wittfogel's discussion of the Reconquest is superficial and deceptive. On the Islamic side, it fails to take account of the political transformation subsequent to the disintegration of the Caliphate, which severely modified the monolithic, despotic organization that the Caliphate certainly once had. The decentralized, evanescent Party Kingdoms (Taifas) were politically quite different from the Caliphate and were to a significant degree homologous to the Christian "feudal" kingdoms of the north. The key transformation of the Reconquest was not from the Islamic absolutism of the Caliphate to the Christian absolutism of the Catholic kings, but rather from the cellular structure of the Islamic Taifa to that of the Christian Taifa.

Wittfogel gives an eccentric interpretation of Castilian "feudalism" (some Spanish institutional historians have denied the existence of such an entity) and of relations between the frontier existence and the rise of Castilian despotism. ⁽⁷⁷⁾ The importance of the shift in center of power from the irrigated huertas of the south to the plains of the north is clear. But what significance does this fact hold for the historian of irrigation? Just as the social implications of the hydraulic theory were tested by anthropologists, the historical implications, too, stand in need of commentary and questioning. From the point of view of the irrigation historian Wittfogel's approach is unscientific. It takes intensive irrigation as indicative of a range of social, economic, and administrative responses without delineating the nature of the actual institutions of water distribution or their place in the overall context of social life. As E. R. Leach pointed out in a trenchant critique of Wittfogel's historical method, evidence for most of the great hydraulic civilizations tends to be archeological; and, while archeology may reveal "a good deal about the nature of the irrigation works in question . . . it tells us very little about the kind of society with which they were associated." ⁽⁷⁸⁾ "Hydraulic" characteristics ought not to be imputed to an administrative system simply on the basis of physical evidence; nor should it be assumed that all irrigation systems in despotic states have developed in the same way. The physical aspects of a system can be deceiving, and Wittfogel (like Borrull) seems to [174] say that an impressive irrigation system must be the work of an impressive government, an agromanagerial despotism commanding an unpaid labor force. Leach points up absurd misinterpretations that can result from this kind of reasoning. The fifty-five-mile long Kalwewa canal system of Ceylon "looks like a colossal and highly organised piece of bureaucratic planning, the work of one of Wittfogel's idealised Oriental Despots. But if so, the planning must have been done by a kind of Durkheimian group mind! The system took about 1400 years to build." ⁽⁷⁹⁾ The large systems of eastern Spain had similarly long histories, their development continuing under a variety of sociopolitical systems. Even when documents are lacking, the evidence of place names suggests such a slow, informal act of creation. Indeed, as Leach points out, the fact that a given hydraulic work must necessarily be the result of a great number of man-hours "does not in itself imply any massive control over labour resources by the 'bureaucratic rulers.'" ⁽⁸⁰⁾

The work of Borrull and his followers, too, was permeated by the unhistorical supposition that only a certain kind of society could have produced the Valencian irrigation system. The possibility that the system might be the product of a gradual accretion, the composite child of several very different societies, was never explored in any systematic way, with the result that similar social structures were attributed to Romans and Muslims by the partisans of each on the basis of the type of irrigation each was assumed to have practiced. Thus what is known of the social, political, and economic structure of Roman and Islamic Spain is made to explain how the fully developed irrigation system came about.

Institutions of water distribution reflect greatly upon the society which originates or practices them. When understood, they can add to our knowledge of Society and culture. But they cannot be deduced from indirect evidence, based wholly on archeological remains, nor upon theories of public works and administrative power.

1. The Claridad de la acequia de la villa de Elche, partly a recapitulation of customs and ordinances and partly a description of the physical characteristics of the irrigation system of Elche, is reprinted in Ibarra y Ruiz, Riego de Elche, pp. 102-545.

2. It is peculiar that Ortiz derived Palombar (from the Latin palumba, dove) from the Arabic when he correctly established the etymologies of the other 3 names: Atufá (Arabic tufâha, apple), Alingasa (Arabic injâs, pear), and Alausa (Arabic lauz, almond). Some 3 centuries later Markham and Badger (see nn. 34-39 below) fared considerably less well, associating Atufá with tufûh, fullness, and Alausa with ladhdha, delight, enjoyment. Paradoxically Ortiz, who was closer by far to the true etymologies than was Markham, rejected Islamic influence categorically, while Markham accepted it uncritically.

3. Ibarra y Ruiz, Riego de Elche, pp. 105-106.

4. Ibid., p. 108. Confusion of the Arabic article al- with Romance al (to the [one]) is a common component of popular etymologies. Compare the derivation of the sales tax, alcabala, from al que vala.

5. Teatro crítico universal, 9 vols. (Madrid, 1726--1740), VIII, disc. 12.

6. Francisco Javier Borrull y Vilanova (1745-1838), secretary of the Holy Office, professor of law at the University of Valencia, named to Royal Judgeship of Tithes by Charles III, elected deputy to the Cortes of Cádiz (1810-1813) where, on July 31, 1812, he petitioned for the survival of the Tribunal of Waters under the terms of art. 278 of the Constitution of 1812, whereby the Cortes was permitted to authorize the preservation of certain special tribunals even though art. 148 had outlawed private jurisdictions. On July 31, 1813, he spoke again, giving a short history of the Tribunal (Discurso sobre la distribución de las aguas del Turia y deber conservarse el Tribunal de los Acequieros de Valencia [3rd ed., Valencia, 1828]. This speech was the basis of the Tratado of 1831 (see above, Chap. III, n. 17). Fernando VII renamed him to his old judgeship, in which office he served both before and after his exile to San Sebastian during the Trienio Liberal (see Almela y Vives, Valencia y su reino, pp. 385-386).

7. Borrull, Tratado, p. vii.

8. Ibid., chap. iii.

9. Ibid., chap. iv. On p. 106 Borrull cites Cavanilles' description of the aqueduct of Chelva.

10. Ibid., chap. v.

11. Ibid., chap. vi, p. 113: "It would be easy to find out which princes ordered this admirable distribution of the water of the Turia, the minister in charge of it, the architect who conceived the plan and who carried it into effect, if during the lifetime of Cardinal Giménez more than 80,000 Arabic volumes had not been burned, and thereafter several more in the fire of the Royal Monastery of the Escorial." The facility with which Borrull projected back into time the contemporary modus operandi of public works projects is remarkable.

12. Ibid., pp. 114-133.

13. Ibid., pp. 133-134.

14. Ibid., p. 136; but see pp. 137-139, where Borrull discusses intelligently some of Conde's errors. A much cited passage in Conde deals with agricultural improvement during the reign of al-Hakam II: "During the long peace which King Alhakem [sic] maintained, agriculture was encouraged in all the provinces of Spain. Irrigation canals were built in the vegas of Granada, Murcia, Valencia, and Aragon. Lakes or albuheras [sic] for irrigation were constructed, and crops of all kinds were grown according to the nature and climate of the provinces" (Historia de la dominación de los árabes en España, 3 vols. [Madrid, 1820], I, 487). No indication of the sources is given. Conde's methodology of careless synthesis was well known to nineteenth-century scholars. Markham, in the bibliography to his Report, called Conde's work "a confused mass of translations from Moorish chronicles" (p. 101; see also p. 75).

15. The millennial celebration was held in November 1960. The featured speaker at the commemorative acto on November 13 was Minister of Public Works Jorge Vigón, who spoke on the recent history of water confederations. In an interview in Las Provincias (Valencia), Nov. 12, 1960, Vicente Giner Boira, who had organized the celebration, was asked how it was known that the Tribunal had been founded 1,000 years ago. He replied: "Scholars believe that it was founded during the reigns of 'Abd al-Rahman III and al-Hakam II around the year 960. Based on this theory, we celebrate it today." See also Las Provincias and Levante (Valencia) for Nov. 11-13, 1960, and Hoja del Lunes (Barcelona), Nov. 14, 1960.

16. For Jaubert de Passa's biography, see Chap. I, n. 2.

17. Jaubert translated Borrull's Discurso and inserted it in his Voyage en Espagne . . . (Spanish trans., Canales de riego: I, 481-487). Borrull wrote (Tratado, p. v) that Jaubert in his book "makes clear the epistolary correspondence which he had with me, the different notices which I gave him with which to illustrate his writings and [he shows himself] to conform to my hypothesis concerning the ordering of both establishments [i.e., the canals and the Tribunal] by the Saracens."

18. Voyage en Espagne dans les années 1816, 1817, 1818, 1819, ou recherches sur les arrosages, 2 vols (Paris, 1823).

19. Canales de riego (see above. Chap. II, n. 1). The Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País of Valencia, recognizing "the great merit of the French work, which extolled the state of our agriculture so highly, particularly in regard to irrigation," offered a prize for the best translation. The prize was won in 1835 by the magistrate Juan Fiol, but funds were lacking for immediate publication. When finally published in 1844, Jaubert's original text constituted vol. I; vol. II consisted of two distinct subvolumes, separately numbered. The first contains several monographs, including one by Juan Roca de Togores y Albuquerque, "Memoria sobre los riegos de la huerta de Orihuela" (1st fasc., pp. 5-150), which won the prize of the Sociedad Económica of Valencia in 1831. On p. 37 he cited Borrull's theory on the origin of the Turia system during the reigns of 'Abd al-Rahman and al-Hakam. Other monographs are those of Pedro de Lara y Meliá, "Memoria sobre la huerta de Gandia, sus riegos y productos" (1st fasc., pp. 151-205), which won a gold medal in the Sociedad's competition for 1831, and F de P. A., "Memoria y plan sinóptico de las acequias del río Turia" (1st fasc., pp. 207-228). The second part contains the Reglamentos y ordenanzas of the huerta canals.

20. Canales de riego, I, 4, 8. Ibn al-'Awwm was the most widely read of the Andalusí agricultural writers because of the translation into Spanish by J. A. Banqueri (Libro de agricultura [Madrid, 1802]).

21. Canales de riego, I, 16.

22. Ibid., p. 390.

23. Ibid., p. 391.

24. Ibid., pp 470-471 fl. 1.

25. Richard Ford, A Hand-book for Travellers in Spain, 2 vols. (London, 1845), I, ix.

26. Ibid., pp. 430-431.

27. See ibid., p. 360.

28. Compare E. W. Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, 2 vols. (London, 1846), 1, 31. Ford used the first edition of Lane (1836) and followed his spellings of shadoof and sackiyeh.

29. For Markham's biography see above, Introduction, n. 1.

30. Vicente Boix y Ricarte (1813-1880). Boix's views of irrigation history were Borrull's exactly. See Apuntes históricos sobre los fueros del antiguo reino de Valencia (Valencia, 1855), pp. 102-103: "El Rey D. Jaime I halló ya concluídas en 1238 las grandes obras de esta hermosa canalización, que deben sin duda atribuirse al gobierno de los árabes Abderrahman-Anasir- Ledinala [sic] y Alhaken Almostansir Bilah, su hijo, por los años 911 al 976" The "sin duda" is indicative of his unquestioning acceptance of the Borrull thesis.

31. Markham, Report, pp. 93-94. Pedro Salvá y Mallen (d. 1860), a bibliophile, was the son of the philologist and book collector Vicente Salvá y Pérez, whose collection he catalogued (Catálogo de la biblioteca de Salvá, 2 vols. [Valencia, 1872]). Doubtless under Salva's aegis -- perhaps in his home-- Markham perused the tomes listed in the bibliography of his Report, pp. 101-104. The list includes Conde's Historia de la dominación de los árabes en España, Banqueri's translation of ibn al-'Awwâm, Rafael de Mancha's Memoria sobre los riegos de la huerta de Murcia (Murcia, 1836), Borrull's Tratado, Jaubert de Passa, and Cirilo Franquet y Bertrán's Ensayo sobre el origen, espíritu, y progresos de la legislación de las aguas, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1864).

32. Report, pp. 6-7 and n.

33. Ibid, p. 49.

34. Sir Albert H. Markham, The Life of Sir Clements R. Markham (London, 1917), p. 168.

35. George Percy Badger (1815--1888), a scholar of Arabic and author of An English-Arabic Lexicon (London, 1881).

36. Report, pp. 49, 51.

37. Ibid., p. 50. Markham was not a careful translator, even from Spanish. See Harry Bernstein and Bailey W. Diffie, "Sir Clements R. Markham as a Translator," Hispanic American Historical Review, 17 (1937), 546-557.

38. A similar line of argument was used by the Marqués de Molins, Mariano Roca de Togores y Carrasco (1812-1889) in his discourse upon reception into the Academy of History. June 29. 1869. entitled "Antigüedades de Elche," reprinted in his Discursos académicos, vol. I (Madrid, 1890), pp. 261-395. "Of the twenty-four partidores or channels through which the water runs," he argued, "few lack an Arabic name" (p. 334); one name so identified is Forat. He listed the names (pp. 335-336) but made no attempt to establish etymologies for any but Alingasa (Alintjasa), Atufá, and Alausa, which he must have known from the Claridad of Ortiz and which, strangely, Badger had missed (see n. 2, above).

39. Report, p. 90 (italics mine).

40. Aymard's informants in Valencia were mostly technicians, including José Ortega (chief engineer of the province), Jaime Zacares (secretary of the Tribunal of Waters), and Juan Vallejo (president of the General Sindicate of the Turia).

41. Aymard, Irrigations du midi de l'Espagne (see above, Intro., fl. 2), p. 11

42. Loaysa made a survey of the irrigation canals of Granada in the 1570's.

43. Irrigations, pp. 269-271. Translation adopted from that of W. H. Hall, Irrigation Development (see above, Intro., n. 3), p. 489.

44. Aymard's attitude toward the irrigation system of Granada -- or lack of system, as it were -- is similar to René Tresse's final judgment of the Ghuta of Damascus: "une situation aussi anormale," resulting from the operations of cleaning and repair having been left for many centuries to the direction of peasants, without any qualified administration. To Aymard and Tresse, who reflected French attitudes toward administration, a "normal" situation was a controlled one, especially control involving a central authority (Tresse, "L'Irrigation dans la Ghouta de Damas," p. 551). Aymard was aware of similarities between Spanish and North African water measures (Irrigations, p. 24 n. 1).

45. Huerta de Murcia, pp. 157--158.

46. Ordenanzas y costumbres, pp. 54--55.

47. Fontavella, Huerta de Gandia, fig. 12.

48. Influencia que ejerció la dominación de los árabes en la agricultura, industria y comercio de la provincia de Castellón de la Plana (Castellón, 1889).

49. Ibid., pp. 40, 63; see also p. 44: the poverty of agricultural lore in the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville and the Forum Iudicum is adduced to support the proposition that huerta cultivation was rare in Roman and Visigothic Spain.

50. Ibid., pp. 45-54, 72--92. Ford also mentioned plants introduced by the Arabs; see Handbook, I, 431 (rice), 432 (carob).

51. Influencia, p. 92.

52. In an appendix (pp. 109-113), selections from the Repartimiento and other donations of James I are reproduced to substantiate the impression of an intensive irrigation regime at the moment of conquest proof is in the presence of key words such as ortum (the assumption being that an ortum, orchard, must be irrigated), vineam (vineyards were customarily irrigated in medieval Valencia), regadiyo, mentions of canals, etc.

53. Their references (Influencia, p 104 n. 2) are to historians of Islamic Spain like Conde and Viardot and to Antonio Garcia Maceira's pamphlet Apuntes y noticias sobre la agricultura de los árabes españoles (Madrid, 1876).

54. Influencia, pp. 105-106.

55. Ibid., pp. 107-108

56. El archivo (Denia), 4 (1890), 190.

57. Ibid., p. 191. Chabás's appraisal of the changeover after the reconquest is curious in view of the fact that several years later he himself published a document proving that the Christian knights actually summoned the Muslim irrigation officials and interrogated them about the custom: Distribución de las aguas en 1244 y donaciones del término de Gandia por D. Jaime I (Valencia, 1898).

58. "Mons parturiens," El archivo, 2 (1887--1888), 232--235.

59. Orígenes del justicia de Aragón (Zaragoza, 1898).

60. The theory is expounded in Origenes, pp. 250--263. For a discussion, see Thomas F. Glick and Oriol Pi-Sunyer, "Acculturation as an Explanatory Concept in Spanish History," Comparative Studies in Society and History, 11 (1969), 145.

61. Orígenes, pp. 300-301.

62. Ibid., pp. 37-38.

63. In 1906 Ribera wrote: "At the present I still consider definitive that which I then discovered concerning the origins of the justiciar; I still believe that the principle of imitation pervades human actions: but I have completely abandoned the vain notion that history might be converted into science by such a method" (Lo científico en la historia [Madrid, 1906], p. 62).

64. "Sistema de riegos" (see Chap. III, n. 22). The article originally appeared in Almanaque "Las Provincias" for 1908.

65. Ribera, "Sistema de riegos," p. 310.

66. Ibid., pp. 311-312: see Chap III, n. 22.

67. Ibid., pp 312-313. Bellver and Cacho reversed the proposition: intensification of cultivation was more the cause of increased population than the effect.

68. De historia arábigo-valenciana (Valencia, 1925), p. 16.

69. Pallantia, (vulgo) Valencia la vieja (Vinaroz, 1902).

70. Valls may have had in mind either Jaldero (Pallantia, p. 166) or Augusto Danvila, who had described walking toward Ribarroja and observing "los negruzcos machones del acueducto que, allá por el siglo III antes de Jesucristo, proveía de agua el castrum romano ("Las ruinas de Pallantia," Almanaque "Las Provincias" [1890], p 212).

71. Pallantia, pp. 117-118. Even some historians have accepted uncritically the oral tradition as fact. For example, the Marqués de Mohins, "Antiguedades de Elche," p. 333, says that "in order to prove [the Arab origins of the irrigation system] it is not necessary to make profound linguistic studies, dust off documents, or decipher inscriptions. The rudest laborer, when asked the name of the estate he works, the district where he lives, and of the canal from which he irrigates, will give you testimony of our assertion." Compare attitudes in Syria (Chap IX, n. 73, below) and in Latin America, Fernando Horcasitas, "La mentalidad difusionista popular," Anales de antropología (Mexico), 6 (1969), 153-167.

72. Pallantia, p. 123.

73. Ibid., pp. 26, 180.

74. Oriental Despotism, p. 215.

75. See ibid., p. 29, and Forbes, Studies in Ancient Technology, II, 6.

76. Administratively the Reconquest was more Oriental than Wittfogel imagines. The massive land inventories known as the Libros de Repartimiento were a typical agromanagerial instrument, with more clearly Islamic antecedents than those Wittfogel posits for the Domesday Book (Oriental Despotism, pp. 213-214; the early date of the Domesday Book makes any connection with Islam, via Sicily, quite improbable, whereas the Repartimiento of Mallorca was redacted both in Romance and Arabic).

77. Oriental Despotism, pp. 216-219: Wittfogel attributes the later strength of Spanish absolutism more to responses to the frontier situation than to submissiveness to authority instilled in the Oriental style. But the more usual interpretation of the Spanish frontier was that it had a leveling effect and was conducive to democratic or decentralized institutions rather than absolutist ones.

78. "Hydraulic Society in Ceylon," p 5.

79. Ibid., p. 13. Even when archeological evidence shows that such works are developed over a long period of time, local myth "invariably attributes their construction to the initiative of a single outstanding monarch." A great part of the literary evidence regarding ancient irrigation (e.g., Hammurabi's direction of irrigation projects) must therefore be taken with more than just a grain of salt.

80. Ibid., p. 14.