A Day To Look Forward To

Back in January, on the Feast of San Sebastián, I blogged about a young man in the village, Pablo, who was born with severe cerebral palsy. His mother had heard of a new form of therapy which offered hope for improvement even though Pablo is now 15 years old. That fiesta became a major fund-raising opportunity in the village and enough money was raised for a visit to the clinic in the UK where he was able to receive treatment and where his mother was instructed in how to administer the exercises that would help him. The outcome was very encouraging; Pablo’s arms and legs are now much more relaxed than they used to be and his speech has also improved. However, there is still a long way to go, and more visits to the clinic will be necessary over the next year or so if he is to get the full benefit. With this in mind, we have an auction taking place this weekend. I have now received more than sixty lots, plus other items of low value which will be put up for sale on a 1€ table. The really good thing is that these items have come from the expat resident community here in Frigiliana, and it’s foreign residents that we are mainly expecting to come and bid. So not only do Pablo and his family benefit financially, but those of us who have come to live in the village (around one third of the population) get an opportunity to show our appreciation for the friendly welcome and acceptance that we have been shown by our Spanish neighbours.

A Brief History of Spain (6)

There is a third name by which the Iberian Peninsula has been known; Sepharad, the name given by the Jews.In the fifth century BC, one of the minor prophets of the bible, Obadiah, prophesying the structure of the new Israel when the Jews return to the Promised Land from exile, makes an interesting reference in verse 20. “...and the exiles from Jerusalem now in Sepharad will occupy the towns of the Negeb.” So before either the Christian or the Muslim religions existed, Jews were living in Sepharad, and continued to do so for more than a thousand years. Indeed, the territory gave rise to the name of one of the two main branches of Judaism in Europe, the Sephardim, descendants of the Jews of what is now known as Spain and Portugal; the other branch, the Ashkenazim, are the descendants of Jews of Germanic and Russian lands. Why do the Jews not feature more prominently in the history of Spain? Possibly because the Jews did not come as an invading army; they came as merchants and traders. They were also skilled craftsmen working in gold, silver, leather and fabrics, serving their wealthy neighbours. Later they became bankers and in the days of Al-Andalus, they were trusted by both Christians and Muslims as diplomats, ambassadors and negotiators. In addition, then as now, the Jews set great store by learning and so they also excelled as teachers, philosophers, doctors and translators. Jewish quarters thrived in the main cities of Al- Andalus, especially in Toledo, Córdoba, Sevilla and Granada. There were Jews who spoke the languages of the east, Arabic, Greek, Persian, Egyptian in addition to Hebrew, and there were Jews who spoke Latin as well as Hebrew. So, especially in Toledo, there were Jews translating the classical texts into Hebrew and other Jews translating the newly translated Hebrew texts into Latin, after which they could be, and were, disseminated widely across Christian Europe. They were the vital link between east and west.

Two Into One Will Go

Yesterday, October 12th was a national holiday in Spain; in fact it was two national holidays. El Día de la Hispanidad commemorates the day in 1492 on which Christopher Columbus reached the American continent (which he mistook for India), and celebrates the whole of the Hispanic world. At least people in Spain celebrate. The indigenous peoples of the Americas have more to rue than to applaud about the consequences of that day. Indeed, a couple of days ago I saw a ‘postcard’ online that appealed to me; “Let’s celebrate Columbus Day,” it said, “by walking into someone’s house and saying, ‘I live here now’”. But October 12th is also celebrated in Spain as El Día de Nuestra Señora del Pilar, (The Feast of the Virgin of the Pillar), a strange title that sent me digging around in Wikipedia. I was speculating recently on when Christianity arrived in the Iberian Peninsula, and conclude that it was probably within 25 years of the death of Jesus. According to the legend surrounding this manifestation of the Virgin Mary, it was even earlier - almost immediately after his death. Tradition says that on January 2nd AD 40, Mary appeared in bodily form (i.e before her Assumption into Heaven) to St James the Great (the apostle, brother of St John, who was later to be buried at what is now Santiago de Compostela) and the first seven converts in the city of Caesaraugusta (present-day Zaragoza). As a memorial of her appearance, it is said, she left behind a column of jasper. James and the others built an adobe shrine at the spot on the banks of the Ebro. Whilst Santiago went on to be declared the patron saint of Spain,Nuestra Señora del Pilar was later adopted as patron by the Spanish armed forces and the Guardia Civil.

A Brief History of Spain (5)

Tariq and his immediate successors, who together form the Umayyid dynasty, recognised the authority of the Caliph in Damascus, and ruled their territory as an Emirate, but in the ninth century Abd-ar-Rahman III renounced the authority of Damascusdeclared the establishment of a second, western Caliphate based on Córdoba, the Umayyid Caliphate, with the city of Sevilla being the major commercial port. Al-Andalus (The Land of the Vandals), and especially the cities of Córdoba and Toledo, flourished as the home of culture, science, philosophy, literature and learning in medieval Europe. The importance of Toledo was particularly great, and also provided a model of religious tolerance and cooperation. Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together on the translation of the ancient texts of classical Greece and Arab texts into Latin for dissemination across Eurpoe which was then in the throes of what we now call the Dark Ages. As an aside, it is worth noting that an Arab contribution of enormous significance was to have brought back from their trading activities in the East, the Chinese secret of paper-making. A cheap, easy-to-manufacture medium for the written word as an alternative to vellum, meant that the production of books was able to expand exponentially. It was a change as profound in its implications for the future of communication as is the fact that I can write these words on my computer, upload them onto a website, and make them available for immediate reading by anyone anywhere in the world who knows their way to my blog. I am talking, of course, only about the technology; the content is another matter! Nothing lasts forever, however, and upon the death of the Caliph al-Mansur in 1031, al-Andalus was left in a politically and militarily weakened state. The Christians of the north of Spain seized the opportunity and the Reconquest began in earnest. During the period from 1037 to 1065 a string of defensive castles were built up along the frontier (Castilla La Vieja). With their defences secured, the Christian armies then began their advance. In 1085 Toledo fell to the Christians and in 1095 El Cid had a series of major victories for the Christians around the Valencia region. In response, in 1086 the Muslim rulers appealed to the leaders of the Almoravid Dynasty of North Africa for assistance. They came to Spain, stabilised the Muslim kingdom and stemmed the advance of the Christian armies. However, they liked what they found on this side of the Mediterranean so they then took over and ruled Al-Andalus themselves. They ruled sufficiently harshly that eventually in 1147, the people called on the Almohads, the North African successors to the Almoravids, for help in ousting the Amoravids which they did, liked what they saw and took over themselves. Unfortunately, the Almohads were the Taliban of their day, and as such were perceived as a serious threat by the Christians and so once again the Reconquest resumed. In 1212 Tolosa fell, swiftly followed by Úbeda. The advance continued, Córdoba was taken in 1236 and Sevilla in 1248. This left just the rump kingdom of Granada, ruled by the Nasrids and extending from west of Málaga to Almería, its northern limit pretty much in line with the Granada to Sevilla road of today. The Nasrids survived for a couple of hundred years, paying tribute to the Christian powers and posing no threat to anyone, until following the marriage of Fernando V of Aragón and Isabela I of Castilla, the Catholic Monarchs, as they styled themselves, sought favour with Rome by ousting the Nasrids and expelling Muslims and Jews in order to proclaim a united, wholly Catholic Spain.

A Brief History of Spain (4)

The opening for the Muslim Era was provided by a major dispute within the Visigothic hierarchy. The Visigoths were Christinas, but subscribed to the Arian interpretation of the relationship between Jesus and God. As such they were considered heretics by Rome, and so whe the Visigothn King Recarold converted to catholicism in the 6th century this led to internal conflicts within the ruling families, conflict which came to a head on the death of Recarold’s son and successor, King Witiza in 710. Roderic, Duke of Baetica (an Arian) immediatelyseized the throne and installed himself as King. Witiza’s family then appealed for help to Tariq ben Ziyad, the Berber Governor of Tangier, and In April 711 he crossed the straits with an army estimated at between 7,000 and 12,000 men, establishing a beachhead near to Algeciras (Gibr al Tariq = Gibraltar). He rapidly advanced to Medina Sidonia where he defeated Roderic’s forces and carried on to take the Visigothic capital of Toledo. Over the next three years, the Berbers spread out across the Peninsula as far as the borders of Galicia in the west, and to the banks of the Ebro in the north and east. Generally at this stage, we are talking about taking control of the territory rather than actually occupying it. For the most part the local population stayed put, many converting to Islam, but many more not. Although nominally the Reconquest began almost immediately with the Battle of Covadonga (Asturias) at which the Christian, Pelayo defeated the invading Muslims, in truth this was no more than a little local skirmish between a Muslim raiding party and the local population defending their cattle and their women. The Christian kingdoms of the north of Hispania were too small, too weak and too disunited in the eighth century to put up any real resistance. Over the next 150 years these kingdoms gradually came together, the two main events bringing this about being firstly the claim in 791 of Alfonso II of Galicia to be the rightful successor to the Visigothic kings, with his sights set on Toledo, the Visigothic capital, and secondly, the ‘discovery’ around 830 AD of the long lost tomb of St James in present day Santiago de Compostela. The tomb rapidly became the third most important pilgrimage destination after Jerusalem and Rome, which in turn led to the Knights Templar establishing themselves along the route as protectors of the faithful, thus greatly increasing Christian military strength, and ushering in the beginning of the true process of reconquest, which even so would not be finally completed until the end of the fifteenth century. Meanwhile, the three hundred years from Tariq’s landing in 711 to the death of the Caliph of Córdoba, al-Mansur in 1031 represents the golden age of Al-Andalus, as the Muslims named those parts (most) of the Peninsula under their rule. The name, Al-Andalus harks back to the Germanic tribes driven out of tHispania in 429; Al-Andalus, the land of the Vandals.