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Urban Development and Muslim Minorities in the Middle Ages: the Path to Invisibility

Ana Echevarría Arsuaga

Abstracts

The long existence of a Muslim population under Christian rule (Mudejars) in the kingdoms of medieval and early modern Iberia gave way to the development of a number of boundaries between religious and social groups. Urban boundaries, both physical and socio-religious, were continuously redefined. Residence in towns in the Iberian kingdoms could vary from contiguous housing to separate neighbourhoods based within real or imagined boundaries. Mudejars in Castile had the possibility of building new mosques, thus breaking canon and local laws, whereas in Aragon, Jewish communities paid for their right to rebuild synagogues continuously. Invisibility was a very important tool to marginalize groups that were perceived as a possible threat, so the only requirement for mosques and synagogues was not to be set apart from surrounding houses. On the other hand, restrictions on minority visibility in Christian spaces included the inauguration of previously inexistent secluded neighbourhoods in northern Castilian towns. The geographical setting of the closed quarters established after the Castilian Cortes of 1480 contributed to the invisibility of the religious minorities, resulting in the long run in their exclusion from urban life.

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  • 1 P. Gautier Dalché, “Islam et chrétienté...”, followed by A. Bazzana, Ph. Sénac and P. Guichard, “La (...)
  • 2 P. Gautier Dalché, “Islam et Chrétienté...”, The concept of borderland, was developed in the contex (...)
  • 3 M. Naum, “Convivencia in a Borderland...”, p. 76; C. Bambrilla, “Exploring the Critical Potential.. (...)

1The Iberian “frontier” has often been identified as an ever-evolving landscape of political military frontiers marked by systems of fortifications. It was defined by Gautier Dalché as a combination of three factors: constant contact with a different culture in densely populated areas; a material, fortified frontier; and the ideology of southward expansion1. One of the elements of the first definition of frontier proposed by Gautier Dalché – constant contact with a different culture in densely populated areas – which was particularly intense in the urban environment of Iberian cities and towns raises the question of whether it is necessary for it to be in a strict borderland to enjoy the intercultural, dynamic social experience of border towns2. Given the dynamic nature of the Iberian borders, it could be argued that this in fact is not the case. Even cities which were geographically remote from a particular borderline could behave as borderland cities in Iberia, subject to multiple factors of borderland life, including a multicultural atmosphere, the impact of migrants from both the Christian and the Muslim borderlines, hybridity in the sphere of material culture, and the presence of multiple and seemingly contradicting identities and negotiations between identity and territorial claims and counter-claims. At the same time, they are places where the ‘normative dimension’ of the border is defined3. In practice, this complexity needed to be regulated through a complex set of inclusion and exclusion mechanisms, which involved strategies of assimilation, cohabitation and segregation all at the same time. The issue of borders as such was dealt with on a different scale to that of the extensive borderlands, but it was nevertheless always present. Perceived boundaries became as important as actual physical boundaries, and the negotiation between religious groups took all this into account.

  • 4 D. Abulafia “Introduction...”.
  • 5 M. Baramova, “Border Theories...”.

2Given that during the first process of colonization after the Christian conquest massive settlement in urban areas was difficult to achieve, as urbanization required specialized manpower, the Muslim and Jewish minorities were authorized to keep a portion of urban space, as is well known. Residence in towns after the creation of the Mudejar statute in the eleventh century by Alfonso VI of Leon, later also used in Aragon, could vary from contiguous housing to separate neighbourhoods based on real or imagined boundaries. Segregation of groups that were perceived as “foreign” and even as a possible threat was not only limited to religious minorities. This is shown by the frequent use of nation-defined neighbourhoods in the northern cities of the Santiago pilgrimage route (Franks, Navarrese, etc.), or merchant colonies in port cities which often used natural borders such as hills, rivers, etc. to clearly define the boundaries of social groups related by geographical origins or common interests, and not only to “religious frontiers”, as Abulafia has called them4. The segregation of Muslims and Jews in conquered cities such as Coimbra, Tortosa, Tudela, Zaragoza or Murcia seems to have a lot to do with their direct link to the counts or kings who collected their taxes and gave them protection. The desire of the minorities themselves to enjoy a particular fuero (local regulations), as granted to other groups in the towns, was accompanied by a juridical definition of the boundaries within the town5. Physical boundaries involved easier control by their own authorities –usually vassal kings or two Islamic authorities, the judge and the military governor, who represented the community- and autonomy for the development of their privileges. It also provided a spatial demarcation from the other inhabitants, making political and military control easier for Christian authorities in case of confrontation. Some elements were defined as inherent to the space confined by these boundaries: a set of city blocks which could be eventually closed off in case of need, including a commercial street and a number of public buildings such as the mosque, the baths, a hostel and inns, a butcher shop and in some cases a school, all of which paid taxes directly to the ruler. Walled cemeteries and peripheral workshops could be kept outside these boundaries but were carefully regulated.

  • 6 Given the space limit of this article and the importance of the historiography on Mudejars in Portu (...)
  • 7 E. Mainé Burguete, “El urbanismo...”, pp. 620–624.

3It has been long discussed whether Jewish and Muslim quarters were imposed by Christian authorities at the time of conquest – a phenomenon, which is coherent with some cities of Andalusia, Valencia and Murcia – or encouraged by the minorities themselves, who found economic or organizational advantages, especially in times of turmoil, as in Zaragoza6. Once the city was conquered in 1118, the Muslim inhabitants who stayed in the city had to move to a former southwestern suburb built in the tenth century between the Roman wall and a ninth century wall, to form a “closed morería”. By the fourteenth century, the neighbourhood had reached its maximum size, with four mosques, a royal hostel or funduq, baths, several furnaces and mills. Two gates opened on to the town: the Mecca gate and the gate to the commercial area in the Coso, which marked the main shopping street, a dynamic centre for both Muslims and Christians7. Like in the capital city, other Muslim communities in Aragon tended to stay in towns, although often relocated to more marginal areas, and enjoyed liberty of cult, kept their mosques, and reinvented themselves as vassals of the king, keeping at least one mosque per city.

  • 8 J. Torres Fontes, “Los mudéjares..."; “Murcia medieval...”; A. Robles Fernández and E. Navarro, “Ur (...)

4Almost a century later, Murcia is an interesting case study for the development of urban spaces. The Arrixaca suburb had been built around the city cemeteries during the Almoravid period, in the eleventh century, and conveniently fortified according to al-Idrisi. A peaceful surrender in 1243 guaranteed the Muslim population exceptionally good terms, so they could keep the central area of the city while the Christians established themselves in another suburb known as “New Murcia”, to the south. The armed uprising of Castilian Mudejars, allied to the emirate of Granada, between 1261 and 1266, changed the conditions of Murcian Muslims, so that Alfonso X ordered their relocation in the walled suburb of the Arrixaca, leaving their properties in the city intact to be occupied by Christians. Although the record literally states “because it is a remote place, thus they will be safer and better guarded”, the measure can be read as a punishment to the rebels. At the same time, mirroring the administrative regime of the minority under the Aragonese kings –Jaime I was his father-in-law and had helped him reconquer the city after the revolt, probably introducing new regulations- Alfonso established the new taxes payable by Murcian Mudejars through their king Muhammad8. The Arrixaca was one of the biggest morerías in Castile until the 1396 pestilence, which reduced its population to twenty families. Pressure on the neighbourhood was intense, to the point that new houses were built over the old Muslim cemeteries. New excavations taking place in the city will doubtless unearth new data about this settlement.

  • 9 C. Laliena and Ph. Sénac, Musulmans et chrétiens ...; A. Echevarría, “La ‘mayoría’ mudéjar...”; T. (...)
  • 10 A. Echevarría, “Does Cohabitation Produce Convivencia?...”, pp. 288–289.
  • 11 F. Fernández y González, Estado social y político..., pp. 381–82; quoted in M.A. Ladero Quesada, “L (...)
  • 12 A. Echevarría, “The Marks of the Other...”; and idem, The City of the Three Mosques..., pp. 64–65.

5A different approach was taken in towns where whole communities of Muslims were managed through Castilian and Aragonese bishops9. Ecclesiastical authority did not bother much with concentration in neighbourhoods in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, possibly because they did not have the capacity to enforce such measures. Part of those Muslims were new arrivals: slaves given to ecclesiastical institutions as donation after raids and expeditions against Muslim troops on the frontier. Later, some became freedmen and remained in the towns where they had been employed in civil works or as field labour for the lands of religious institutions. Others were vassals of the bishops and abbots who worked as tenants in their fields, and finally during the thirteenth century a wave of refugees settled in the northern half of the Iberian Peninsula fleeing from the wars in Andalusia, Murcia and Valencia. All these communities had to adapt to the existing conditions of urban life. Their low income meant they did not have access to the property of houses, and the funds for public buildings required for their rituals and management had to be allocated to them by the Christian authorities. A legal void helped Muslims to attain the condition of vecinos (citizens with a number of rights as regards the municipality) in several cities and towns10. This enabled them to live in a widespread area in houses often property of the Church. Perceived boundaries were challenged even by members of the clergy, following their own interests. For instance, during the fourteenth century, loaning cathedral canons’ properties to Muslims and Jews for a fee had become a common practice in the lands of Castile, confirmed by cathedral books in Segovia, Avila, Talavera, Toledo, Plasencia, and other cities. As a countermeasure, the synod of Salamanca (1335) forbade renting houses to Jews and Muslims in the vicinity of churches and Christian cemeteries11, thus preventing the obstruction of Christian public space by alien groups in religious feasts, in the same spirit as the council of Zamora that forbade Jews from stepping into the streets during Holy Week and Sundays. However, according to Jewish and Muslim practice, loans could not be auctioned, so that prices for these two groups had to be fixed beforehand, a practice the Christian owners resented. The Cortes of Valladolid (1351) dealt with this issue and decided on a new device: from then on, all loan contracts signed by Muslims and Jews specified that they renounce their own law, paradoxically agreeing to abide by canon law12. Even juridical barriers at some point became vague.

The prohibition of visibility in Christian space

  • 13 A. Echevarría, “Política y religión...”.
  • 14 P. León Tello, Los judíos..., doc. 80. All these movements may be followed in the books of properti (...)

6Restrictions on the visibility of minorities in Christian space included the inauguration of previously inexistent, secluded neighbourhoods in Castilian towns. A first attempt at segregation was included in the 1412 Ordinance of Valladolid, issued by Juan II’s regents, stating the conditions by which Jews and Muslims were to live in the kingdom. It tried to solve the problem of Jews and Muslims living dispersed among the Christian inhabitants, a feature quite common throughout Castile in towns of all sizes. Both Muslim and Jewish aljamas protested and those ruled by one of the regents, Fernando of Antequera, such as Murcia, achieved immunity through payment of a fine, and continued to enjoy their privileges to live wherever they wanted to in the city. The ordinance then only affected the areas governed by the dowager queen Catalina of Lancaster. Some cities saw their new Jewish and Muslim quarters built around this time. In many cases, this involved a change of location for the mosque, since local authorities preferred to concentrate the places of worship within the boundaries of the new quarters, rather than having the religious minorities circulating through the city to reach them. In the area held by Queen Catalina, Muslims and Jews were moved to temporary walled lodgings (called “cércalos”)13. In Avila, this annoyed the cathedral canons, who saw their houses devoid of tenants in the market areas, so there was soon a countermeasure and Muslims could go back to their original dwellings, or they were lodged in other buildings owned by the canons, while shops continued to be leased to them14.

  • 15 During the thirteenth century, the Roman legal concept of emphiteusis was still used in canon law t (...)
  • 16 M. Moratinos and O. Villanueva, “Consecuencias del Decreto...”, pp. 119–120; M. Gómez Renau, “La Al (...)
  • 17 M. Moratinos and O. Villanueva, “Consecuencias del decreto...”, pp. 131–132.

7In Valladolid, which acted as the royal capital for great periods of time, they had to find new quarters on the outskirts of the city. As one of the earliest places to confine Muslims, Valladolid is important to assess the policies of the Crown. There, Mudejars were forced to sign an emphiteutic lease15 from the canons of the church of Saint Mary on an orchard in the southern part of town, across from the Puerta del Campo (Gate of the Fields), where there was enough room to build. The king’s council ordered the move, so they were given permission to build a new mosque in exchange for the old one within the walls close to St. Martin, which had become a cherished upper class area of the city. The new neighbourhood, named “Barrio de Santa María” for its relation with the canons, had around thirty houses, a mosque (known as the almají), a butcher shop and other buildings for the community16. The triangular area was surrounded by a wall whose only gate was beside the convent of St. Francis, on Market Street, according to the ordinance. The development was designed along two main streets, Carpintería and Carnicería or Caminería, with three inns and a butcher shop. However, this was not the only wall, because the mosque was also surrounded by a walled courtyard, where they celebrated their marriages; an orchard, with tall poplars and elms; and a big well in which the Muslims bathed in order to perform their prayers. The large enclosure behind it reached the city wall and the street that led to the Gate of the Fields, thus isolating Muslim rites from the other communities in the city17.

  • 18 “Por ende nos, acatando el servicio de Dios e ensalzamiento de su santa fe, e porque la familiarida (...)

8Seclusion of Muslims in morerías was used as a political tool when the nobility opposed the Crown. A notorious example is found in the Sentence of Medina del Campo, issued in January 1465 by the league of nobles who wanted to dethrone Enrique IV. Accusations against the king for islamophilia were linked to the fact that Mudejars were able to circulate freely in the cities, and the king was asked to banish them from the royal court, first, and from the country, afterwards, under the penalty of becoming slaves18.

  • 19 “Porque de la continua conuersacion e uiuienda mezclada de los judios e moros con los christianos r (...)
  • 20 Such census would the basis for the calculations of subsequent taxes on the Muslims, the castellano (...)
  • 21 AGS, section Registro General del Sello, 148005, n° 87.

9The same excuse was used by the Catholic Monarchs in Castile in 1480, when all Muslims and Jews were forced into closed neighbourhoods that ensured the physical boundaries established by the new ideological trends. After the end of the civil war of succession, the monarchs were ready for the final war against Granada, and they issued an ordinance during the Cortes of Toledo, in which they ordered all the Jews and Muslims who were not yet living in separate neighbourhoods to proceed into walled quarters because conviviality –which can be defined as “continuous conversation and cohabitation”- of Jews and Muslims with Christians resulted in great inconvenience for the kingdom19. They also ordered a new census of all the members of the religious minorities20. It may be argued that these were war measures, intended to ensure control of the minorities during the conflict, especially the Muslim one, prone to support their fellow Muslims in Granada. The geographical setting of these enclosures contributed to the invisibility of the religious minorities, as they were placed in barely visible areas. In Avila, they occupied the southern lowlands of the river Grajal, close to the orchards, with a steep access to the walled area, and out of sight from most parts of the city, except from the walls. In other towns, they were removed from the centre to more peripheral areas, usually close to rivers or roads that would enable them to circulate without crossing the city centre. For instance, in Cordoba, the Muslims living there by 1480 were placed in an insalubrious area of the city following the royal order, and their mosque was walled. Although they were moved following their complaints, there is no reference to a new mosque21. These measures resulted in the long run in their exclusion from urban life. A period of two years was granted for the move to other places where their subsistence was guaranteed.

  • 22 C. Luis López and J.M.l López Villalba (eds.), Pleitos medievales...
  • 23 AHN, Clero Secular-Regular, Avila, leg. 534–1, Censos de la morería.
  • 24 11 January 1488. Archivo Histórico Provincial de Avila, Protocol 420, fol. 292r (cat. 1957), regard (...)

10Each Castilian city reacted to this order in a different way. Paradoxically, the abbot of the Premonstratensian house of Sancti Spiritus in Avila, conveniently placed on the outskirts of the city in an orchard area by the river Grajal, managed to attract Muslim clients for all the leases formerly belonging to the cathedral when they were expelled out of the walls, while at the same time crusading bulls were issued for the war against Granada. Influence peddling is apparent, for the abbot was at the same time juez conservador of the cathedral canons, defending them in their trials with other cathedral chapters22. He used emphitheusis contracts again to secure the rents of the Muslim community in the city, quoting in the records that “the contracts were written in the same way as those established between these same Muslims and the cathedral chapter”, and that the Moors “dismissed their laws of the Moors, in order to be ruled by canon law”23. Thus the last mosque in the city, founded in the new Muslim quarter that was created in the district of El Berrocal (‘the rocky place’) or Las Vacas (‘the cows’), to the southeast, did benefit from the agreement made at the Cortes of 1480: it stated that if mosques that lay outside the Moorish quarter were enclosed, others could be built within it24. In fact, all of Avila’s mosques did not abide by this standard, however, the Alquibla mosque was still in use in 1487, probably because it stood in the remotest district.

  • 25 AGS, section Registro General del Sello, 148011, n° 123. “Al tienpo que los apartamientos de los ju (...)

11Segovia followed very similar patterns, to the extent that the new quarter created also belonged to the Sancti Spiritus monastery. The mosque in the parish of Saint Martin was claimed by the neighbours who lived in that quarter25.

  • 26 E. Cantera Montenegro, “Las comunidades judía y mudéjar...”, p. 134.

12After 1480, Mudejars living in Aranda de Duero were forced to move outside the city walls, to the suburb known as the “arrabal de Duero”26. At the same time, the Jewish community was also concentrated in the Jewish quarter near one of the gates. Ironically, the new setting could benefit the Muslim blacksmiths, who had their furnaces outside the morería, with close access to water, and were reached there by both Christians and Muslims in search of their services, arousing the protests of other competitors, blacksmiths and boilermakers, whose workshops were inside the old morería within the walls. As a result, all of them were authorized in 1483 to have their workshops outside the quarter, on the condition that they did not eat, sleep or work in them at night. Meanwhile, the Christian neighbours of the arrabal had asked the authorities to close the main street of the Muslim quarter on both sides, in such a way that carts and mules could not enter the enclosure. The aljama alleged that a public street could not be closed, as both inhabitants, food and other commodities needed to move through it.

  • 27 Y. Moreno Moreno, “La interacción en el espacio...”; idem, Mudéjares en Talavera de la Reina..., pp (...)

13Talavera de la Reina, a small town subject to the lordship of the Archbishop of Toledo, was a peculiar case, where the mosque was built facing the chapter church of Saint John, which had replaced the original aljama mosque in town at the time of the conquest. It is still unclear how the Muslims managed to secure such an outstanding place for their prayer hall, but the synagogue was placed right behind the same church of Saint Mary, thus suggesting a special protection of the canons over the two religious minorities. The new Muslim quarter of Talavera27, called Barrionuevo (New Quarter) was drawn to a corner of the second wall, only to be seen by travellers coming via the Royal Way from Toledo and Madrid, through the Toledo Gate, but hidden to the city neighbours. It was limited by a smaller street called the "Travesía de Barrionuevo" to the west, with a narrow exit called "Salida del Barrionuevo". Markets, inns, hospitals, orchards and vineyards were sufficiently far away from this area of the city for Christian neighbours not to have to cross the Muslim quarter to reach them, and Muslims were cut off from communal areas except in order to get to the mosque. Few of them, that is to say primarily the well-connected rich elite, managed to keep their houses close to that building.

The foundation of new mosques in Christian cities

  • 28 S. Allievi, Conflicts over Mosques..., pp. 13, 20.

14Obviously, among the most visible buildings related to religious minorities, the most dangerous in the eyes of the Christians were their halls of prayer. Recently, the controversy surrounding building mosques has become “a debate within European society, but also about society itself, because it implies the perception of control over the territory as a cultural and symbolic fact”28. Building temples of any creed is historically a sign of dominion and power. Moreover, deciding about where and when other faiths’ places of worship ought to be built may also invoke a certain degree of control. The fact authorities started to worry about these matters implies a growing awareness – both on the part of the Christian majority and the Muslim minority – that migration is permanent, no longer associated with the return to the homeland.

  • 29 S. Grayzel, The Church and the Jews..., vol. I, pp. 106–109, 137–139, 169, 283.

15However, a careful examination of canon law shows that it took a couple of centuries for the restrictions on building non-Christian temples to be issued in Castile –not so in Aragon- and still longer before mosques experimented the same restrictions as synagogues in the canon and civil law of Latin Christendom. Only after Innocent III’s “Constitutio pro judaeis”, did his successors Honorius III, Innocent IV, Clement IV and Nicholas III call the attention of bishops to control the building of new synagogues in their sees and to tear down all but reconstructions29. Provincial synods in Oxford and Cordoba recalled these instructions and issued more prohibitions, which were usually ignored. None of this applied to the Muslims who lived in the Iberian Peninsula until much later.

  • 30 A. García Sanjuán, “Causas inmediatas...”; J. Torró Abad, “El problema del hábitat fortificado...”; (...)
  • 31 Queen Juana, the wife of Enrique II of Castile (1369–1379), expelled the Jews of the synagogue of V (...)
  • 32 English trans. P. Geary, Readings in Medieval History, pp. 762, 765.

16The real offensive against the halls for prayer of the two minorities started with civil law. The Siete Partidas, the first medieval compilation of Roman law issued in the Iberian Peninsula, under Alfonso X “the Learned” (around 1273–75) reflects a complex situation, just after or during a wave of uprisings involving the Muslim emirate of Granada, and Muslims under Christian rule. The upheavals affected both Aragon and Castile: 1248 in Valencia, 1264–67 in Murcia and Andalucía and again in 1274 in Valencia, all areas with an important number of Muslim subjects30. All truces were broken, and vassal contracts were abrogated following Christian law. The consequences are clear in the different approach to synagogues and mosques taken by the fourth law in Partida VII, Tit. XXIV31 on Jews, reproducing the contents of the Oxford synod and subsequent ecclesiastical meetings in the lines mentioned above, and that in the first law of Partida VII, Tit. XXV, concerning the Muslims. By regulating that if “those which formerly existed there are torn down, they can be built in the same spot where they originally stood; but they cannot be made any larger or raised to any greater height, or be painted”. Alfonso X technically acknowledged the halls for prayer of Jews. By contrast, the law concerning Muslims shows the anger of the king following the uprisings of the decade of 1260, which resulted in a tougher stance against the Muslim communities’ freedom to use their mosques, due to the abrogation of the pacts that protected them: “Moors, however, shall not have mosques in Christian towns, or make their sacrifices publicly in the presence of men. The mosques which they formerly possessed shall belong to the king; and he can give them to whomsoever he wishes”32.

  • 33 J. Riera i Sans, Els poders públics.... I thank Dr. Javier Castaño for directing me to this invalua (...)

17Over the last part of the thirteenth century, and following subsequent pardons bestowed by the kings in order not to lose manpower in those lands where the rebellion had been suppressed, the law concerning synagogues became extended to Muslims and their mosques in everyday practice. The Siete Partidas were not fully implemented as a rule of law until 1348, but in this lapse of time the needs had changed, and the treatment of synagogues and mosques, as that of Muslims and Jews, became associated under the Partida VII, Tit. XXIV, Law IV. A collection of records recently published for the Crown of Aragon shows that in fact, Jews negotiated with the king –and to a lesser extent, with the Church- the possibility to build, repair or enlarge their synagogues constantly, between 1231 and 1500, in exchange for payments33. No proof of such transactions has yet appeared for Muslims and their mosques, either in Aragon or in Castile.

18Regional variations were very much conditioned by the development of the wars of conquest. In those places where Muslims stayed in their own lands, slight adjustments were made, but in general rural communities enjoyed liberty of cult, kept their mosques and reorganized in cities as vassals of the king, keeping at least one mosque per city, as we have seen in the case of Zaragoza. South of the Central Mountain Range, in Toledo, one mosque was permitted to remain in every town where a Muslim population persisted. The Friday mosque was taken away from Muslims in great cities as a sign of defeat, and transformed into a cathedral or a basilica, but one of the neighbourhood mosques was chosen to continue Islamic cult. The same applied to the new conquered areas of Andalusia and Valencia. The removal of Muslims from their Friday mosques had a symbolic meaning but also a practical one, since it kept them from conviviality in the main public areas of the city.

  • 34 S. Allievi, Conflicts..., p. 23.
  • 35 M. I. Calero Secall, “Algunas fetuas...”.

19Some nuances regarding the question of the foundation of mosques have been introduced by recent studies: it is important to differentiate between mosques generated by a community in an already extant building, from mosques built as such to perform the function of prayer, the so-called “purpose-built mosques”34. To begin with, the latter might also be aesthetically recognizable as such, but not necessarily so. The second factor to take into account is permanence of mosques built or founded in Christian cities before the aforementioned ban of 1348 –that is, under an ambiguous legal situation- and those founded after 1300. Medieval Christian cities in the Iberian Peninsula could house one or more mosques35, some may have remained after the Christian conquest of the city while others had been authorized by the city’s leaders when the resident Muslim community asked for permission –a permission that was denied by legal codes, both ecclesiastical and royal, but which in fact was given for practical reasons. As happened elsewhere, these buildings framed the public space in which the Muslim community would circulate and communicate, since they were attached to normal places of assembly: the market and the public square.

  • 36 A recent study of the development of the city according to historiography and the use of cemeteries (...)

20A different example can be explored in the area of Toledo and its surrounding cities. In theory, the Muslims of Toledo would have kept the mosques for their cult, but we know that the great mosque was taken away from them and consecrated as a cathedral, even though it kept its original architecture for two more centuries, until the construction of the Gothic building was started by Archbishop Jiménez de Rada. There is an ongoing debate among scholars who believe that all Muslims left Toledo and those who, as I argue, think that Muslims either stayed in the city in marginal quarters while the Christians distributed among themselves the most coveted parts, and then reoccupied the buildings, which were left, or had to leave the city only for a while36. Both scenarios mean that this community still had halls for prayer and that the central role of mosques in teaching and judging was not completely erased by the conquest.

21In fact, most mosques in the city had been transformed into churches by 1190, and only the “new” mosque of Tornerías or del Solarejo (‘on the small plot of land’) was kept as the Friday mosque for Muslims until the end of the Middle Ages. Again, the mosque was placed close to the main market of Zocodover, where houses belonged to Christians, who leased them to anybody who could pay the rent, regardless of their faith37. New discoveries in the basement of the mosque have unearthed an earlier Umayyad building dated to the eighth century, with great stone arches and a minaret, presumably built outside the walls shortly after the Islamic conquest of the city for the first Muslim settlers. The mosque seems to have been abandoned around the thirteenth century because its outdoor areas were full of debris. Only during the fourteenth century was the mosque rebuilt in its current form, with three shops beneath the prayer hall, opening to the eastern façade, which were rented as part of the maintenance of the building, normally to Muslims38. By that time, the minaret was not recovered and its lower structure was added to the shops. The main entrance to the mosque was left on the western façade, where a small square left some space for the community to meet. A fire that broke out in the city in 1465 altered the hall of prayer, which needed to be refurbished and the ceiling vaults rebuilt39. Unfortunately, no adjacent buildings have been salvaged, so we cannot say whether they had communal halls, and the small courtyard that throws light into the prayer hall is so small that it could not host a meeting of people. Given the date of construction of the new floors of Tornerías, the mosque must have necessarily been acknowledged by the Archbishop of Toledo, who ruled over most of the city at that time, and must have given permission for the works. This is possibly why the aljama of Toledo chose a place, which had already been a mosque. Thus, law was carefully respected and no challenges would be made by Christian fellow citizens.

22Although the mosque survived until the forced baptism of Muslims in 1502, nobody questioned its property or why it should be placed conspicuously in the middle of the market area, among Christians. Records about the Tornerías mosque specify, “la mezquita que fue de los moros” or “la mezquita propiedad de los moros”, but they do not define which kind of property this was.

23Another kind of problem were mosques built in towns with no previous Muslim occupation for centuries. Refugees or prisoners from the wars of conquest in Andalusia and Valencia settled in the northern half of the Iberian Peninsula during the thirteenth century but did not have mosques from the Islamic period, either because the frontiers of al-Andalus had never gone so far north or because Muslims had left those areas by the eleventh century and therefore, the mosques had been transformed into churches while the Muslim population had either left or converted. As a result, local codes in the area omitted jurisdiction about Muslims because they did not live there at the time when these codes were issued. Muslim immigrants, both captives and freemen, were acknowledged their right to practice their faith, and once manumitted, many of them remained in place and were organized as aljamas or morerías. Their rights included permission to have their own mosques in each of the towns, and in many rural settlements depending on their particular legal grants (fueros). Since archaeological and archival studies have proved in the past years that these prayer halls actually existed and were moved inside medieval cities according to the needs of subjected minorities, it is likely they were accepted by the Christian authorities.

  • 40 References in T. López Mata, “Morería y judería”, pp. 337–339; L. Araus and O. Villanueva, “Espacio (...)

24However, these spaces had to be negotiated, since Muslims in northern Castilian cities were not found there in the first place, as we have seen. If the Muslims were allowed to pray while they were slaves, captured in war – plenty of records show distribution of prisoners among the different social groups of Castilian frontier cities, including Church authorities, but there is no written proof of that – they must have been granted some place to build a prayer hall, as well as cemeteries. Several mosques were built in cities affected by immigration of Muslims before the ban was finally imposed in 1348. The first was Burgos, another preferred royal capital, where the works of the monastery of Las Huelgas and the construction of the King’s and the Queen’s Hospital in the times of Alfonso VIII had helped a number of free Muslim inhabitants to settle in the city. They owned a mosque in a neighbourhood whose boundaries were defined by the churches of St. Agueda by 1214, and later –after 1260– among the parishes of St. Martin, Sta. María de la Vieja Rúa (St. Mary of the Old Street), and Saint Colomba. The building is taken for granted in the cathedral records, because this mosque is too early to be affected by restrictive laws40.

25Avila is the most exceptional community in northern Castile because it had four mosques –three of them in use at the same time in the mid-fifteenth century- for a community that did not even host a judge (qadi). This peculiarity still needs to be studied. Toledo, which was usually home to the most important members of the judicial elite, either had more mosques that we don’t know of, or the Muslims of Avila had a special privilege that enabled them to have so many mosques. At least two of them were built in the period when the ban was standing, so specific permission must have been sought. In this case, none of them was built over previous Islamic property.

  • 41 L. Araus and O. Villanueva, “Espacios, identidades y relaciones...”, p. 179; L. Araus and O. Villan (...)
  • 42 S. de Tapia, La comunidad morisca..., p. 61.

26Despite the lack of written records on the origins of the settlement of Jews and Muslims inside the walls of Avila, the fact that both the first mosque and the first synagogue in the city were placed in the centre of town, by the church of San Esteban, and again in an area close to the market, in grounds belonging to the cathedral canons, means that the building had to be granted by, or at least established in connivance with the Bishop and canons, along with the approval of the city council. It was located within the walls, on a site both favourable and easily controlled, as it was close to both the cathedral and the castle. Such location near the cathedral and within the city walls also suggests a need – as in other Castilian cities such as Burgos41 – to protect the minority communities. Interestingly enough, this first aljama mosque was called, as in Toledo, ‘del Solarejo’, ‘of San Esteban’ or ‘the almaxi’ (for al-masjid) of the town which is inside the city’42. The date of construction is unknown, but it appears in records as early as 1303, and therefore did not fall under the legal restrictions of the Partidas. It remained in use until the new Muslim morería was created southbound outside the walls, by the Trail of the Cows (Camino de las Vacas), after the Cortes of 1480.

27Two more mosques were built as the aljama started to grow, defying all existing laws.

  • 43 The cult of Saint Nicholas, bishop of Myra (whose relics were later taken to Bari), was related to (...)
  • 44 For instance, the faqihs of the three mosques disagreed on the practice of prayer on a goatskin, an (...)

28La Solana mosque –mentioned around 1411- stood next to the city wall, close to the church of Saint Mary Magdalene and the Great Market. Its congregation would have consisted of the faithful who lived around the market and the squares of San Pedro and Santo Tomé, both of them located in the market district. But the most striking example appears after 1396, when the suburb (arrabal) of San Nicolás43 – which had existed at least since the end of the twelfth century around the Romanesque church of the same name – became an important new area of residence for Avila’s Muslims, closer to the river and to the Muslim cemetery. The new Alquibla mosque was built in this neighbourhood, defying prohibitions. It is hard to understand how Muslims were allowed to erect a third prayer hall in such a small city as Avila while the two others were still in use. There must have been an increase in Avila’s Muslim population at about this time, and a shift of its centre towards the southern suburbs of the city beyond the walls; such a movement might have freed up spaces within the walls that Christians could put to other uses. Other reasons for the opening of a new mosque might be that Muslims who moved into the neighbourhood became reluctant to climb further uphill to the older mosques, in the walled area, leaving their workshops, or perhaps because they belonged to a different branch within Islam –as might be suggested by the lack of agreement of the faqihs of the city concerning legal matters44. The transfer of population southwards can be appreciated in the records of new house leases to a number of second sons of the main families of the aljama, usually craftsmen, around the square of the “Old Bath”, which in itself is revealing of the proximity of wells usually related to ritual wash for prayer. Still, a new mosque could not be erected in such a neighbourhood without being conspicuous to Christian authorities, especially if they took enough space in the quarter to build a big hall. Since the town’s orchards were placed between the houses in the areas next to the river, some barren ground might have been found in order to build the mosque in a convenient place for worshippers. Given the inclination of Avila’s Mudejars to cultivate invisibility and prudence, one can assume that they would not risk losing their good relations with both religious and civil authorities. Thus, they must have ensured some kind of written permission from the king, the bishop or the town council in order to be unhindered, as in the neighbouring Kingdom of Aragon, where they paid the relevant fees.

  • 45 S. Allievi, Conflicts..., pp. 42–43.
  • 46 One of the chapters of Saḥnūn’s Mudawwana was devoted to the possibility of Muslims leasing houses (...)
  • 47 AGS, section Registro General del Sello, 148011, n° 123. I thank my colleague J. L. Pascual for thi (...)
  • 48 M. Moratinos and O. Villanueva, “Consecuencias del decreto....”, p. 124.
  • 49 C. M. Ajo, Historia de Avila..., vol. III, p. 241. The mosque was mentioned already in 1411.
  • 50 C. Delgado Valero, “El arte de Ifrīqiya...”, pp. 293–294.
  • 51 O. Villanueva Zubizarreta and J. Jiménez Gadea, “Elementos decorativos góticos...”.

29On the other hand, we might face an example of “architectural mimicry”, i.e., the decision to build or adapt a building in a style not dissimilar to nearby buildings45. If we consider that the minimal architectural requirements of a mosque correspond easily to the structure of a Castilian house of the period, it is possible that one of the houses leased from the cathedral chapter may have been used as a mosque46. In fact, the definition that some of the medieval records gave of these mosques included the word “house”, “una casa de almagid que los moros ovieron tenudo en la dicha çibdad e collaçion”47 referring to the mosque in the neighbourhood of St. Martin, in Segovia, or “la casa que solía ser mezquita e almají”, for the mosque of Valladolid48; or “las casas del almagid que estaban a la bajada del Rastro”, to refer to the mosque of La Solana, in Avila49. Castilian houses could be adapted to function as mosques by changing very little of their formal appearance: there was usually a courtyard with a well that could be used for ablutions, and a qibla marking the direction for prayer could be located in one of the rooms. Small neighbourhood mosques copying the structure of houses with just one big hall and several small adjoining rooms were common in the Maghreb and al-Andalus, and probably were easily reproduced in Castile50. Internal decoration made of movable goods – carpets, book stands, tapestries, the minbar – or architectural details made of plaster and wood were enough to give them a semblance of Islam. In fact, many Christian houses and palaces of the city displayed this type of decoration with Islamic traceries in their rooms and courtyards51. On the other hand, Islamic law did not require architectural changes in houses performing as mosques, especially, since minarets were forbidden,and there was usually a courtyard with a well that could be used for ablutions. It is even possible that one of the houses leased from the cathedral chapter may have been used as a mosque.

  • 52 In 1396 and 1402, Mahomad Paton and his son Yuçef Paton hold leases from the cathedral chapter on t (...)
  • 53 Like the transfer of the house that stands between the courtyard and the alley of the inner-city mo (...)

30Muslims tried to accumulate properties in the area, adding further buildings to the mosque itself, as a residence for the alfaquí, a Koranic school, or simply as a way to manage pious donations for maintaining the mosque52. Mosques could be maintained through alms from the congregation, as well as by properties within the town, following the uses of waqf, which were still known and practiced despite being under Christian rule. These properties were usually houses, which the community offered in perpetual leasehold to the neediest Muslims of the community, or shops like in Toledo. If the occupant died without heirs or if the leaseholder decided to sell the dwelling, the aljama could buy it back53.

  • 54 S. Allievi, Conflicts..., pp. 14, 38–41.
  • 55 It should be noted that the famous Council of Vienne (1311–1312) makes no mention of mosques or bui (...)
  • 56 On this question and the call to prayer, see S. Allievi, Conflicts..., pp. 45–49, where he argues t (...)
  • 57 “Once all the Muslims of the mentioned aljama and Muslim quarter had been called by Seymenia Calder (...)

31The other issue involved is visibility in cities, which has an evident symbolic value54. When call to prayer was forbidden by the council of Vienne55, the physiognomy of Iberian skylines must have changed, as minarets became useless. Following canon prohibitions, mosques stopped having minarets, so they were not recognizable in the cities56. Meetings of the aljama started to take place following the call of Christian bells (“a campana tañida”), or else notifying the faithful door to door. Seymenia Calderera, a Muslim widow of Valladolid, was in charge of calling the members of that aljama when her husband died57.

  • 58 S. Allievi, Conflicts..., pp. 45–49.
  • 59 A. Echevarría, City of the Three Mosques...., p. 110; A. Echevarría and R. Mayor, “Las actas de reu (...)
  • 60 C. Almagro, “Religious Minorities’ Identity...”, p. 203.

32The call to prayer could also be performed as a ritual practice inside the mosque58. Records from different cities show the names of muezzins until well into the fifteenth century59. Breaches of the prohibition must have also happened as late as 1440, since the issue of the call to prayer was raised in the city of Uclés, head of the chapter of the Military Order of Santiago, where it was again forbidden by the master60.

Conclusion

33Erasing religious minorities, or rendering them invisible, was a way to redefine the boundaries in cities, enhancing their demarcation role. After the Toledo decrees Christians could be punished by law if the wandered into a minority neighbourhood, especially after curfew. Conviviality ceased to be regarded as positive, especially if it took place in the precincts of the morerías. Moreover, space became a barrier, helped by devices such as walls, gates and marginal situation by roadways. By the time the Iberian Peninsula considered itself free from its definition as a borderland due to the conquest of Granada, the mechanisms which had served well for centuries started to change. The expulsion of Jews in 1492 and the forced baptisms of Muslims in the sixteenth century made urban boundaries based on religion pointless. Moriscos – Muslim converts to Christianity – went back to building their houses in the same neighbourhoods as other Christians, economic means being the only restriction for their situation.

  • 61 With respect to Castilian Mudejars' feelings of helplessness upon the imminent removal of their tra (...)

34The attitude towards mosques, despite legal frameworks and public opinion, seems to have been highly pragmatic, although sometimes ambiguous. Concerns about social peace have often induced authorities to turn a blind eye to certain illegal religious behavior on the part of religious minorities who nevertheless kept practicing. Even while arguments against other faiths were developed in the written form, the Christian Church in the Iberian Peninsula acted as a guarantor of social peace, and profited from the economic benefits that minority communities could provide. However, the decree of the Cortes of Toledo in 1480 meant that old mosques were confiscated in the centre of towns and new mosques were built with the approval of the king and queen, again often on lands belonging to the church61. They would last only until the compulsory conversion in 1502.

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Bibliography

Archival Sources:

Archivo Histórico Provincial de Avila:

  • Protocol 420, fol. 276v.

  • Protocol 420, fol. 292r (cat. 1957).

Archivo General de Simancas (AGS):

  • Section Registro General del Sello, 148011, n° 123.

  • Section Registro General del Sello, 148005, n° 87.

Archivo Histórico Nacional (AHN):

  • Clero Secular-Regular, Avila, leg. 534–1.

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Notes

1 P. Gautier Dalché, “Islam et chrétienté...”, followed by A. Bazzana, Ph. Sénac and P. Guichard, “La frontière...”. For a recent approach to frontier bibliography, N. Berend, “Preface”, p. xi.

2 P. Gautier Dalché, “Islam et Chrétienté...”, The concept of borderland, was developed in the context of Mexican border policies and postcolonial theory by O. J. Martínez, Border People..., p. 5–7. It refers to “a region that lies adjacent to a border”, but also “a unique human environment shaped by physical distance from central areas and constant exposure to transnational processes, stressing the role of its residents in connectivity, because they are more likely to live in heterogeneous environments because of ethnic mixing and extensive migration”.

3 M. Naum, “Convivencia in a Borderland...”, p. 76; C. Bambrilla, “Exploring the Critical Potential...”, pp. 19–20.

4 D. Abulafia “Introduction...”.

5 M. Baramova, “Border Theories...”.

6 Given the space limit of this article and the importance of the historiography on Mudejars in Portugal, which would make my arguments too long, I will refer only to the kingdoms of Leon-Castile and Aragon.

7 E. Mainé Burguete, “El urbanismo...”, pp. 620–624.

8 J. Torres Fontes, “Los mudéjares..."; “Murcia medieval...”; A. Robles Fernández and E. Navarro, “Urbanismo de la morería...”.

9 C. Laliena and Ph. Sénac, Musulmans et chrétiens ...; A. Echevarría, “La ‘mayoría’ mudéjar...”; T. W. Barton, “Constructing a diocese...”, and idem, “Muslims in Christian Countrysides...”.

10 A. Echevarría, “Does Cohabitation Produce Convivencia?...”, pp. 288–289.

11 F. Fernández y González, Estado social y político..., pp. 381–82; quoted in M.A. Ladero Quesada, “Los mudéjares de Castilla...”, p. 373.

12 A. Echevarría, “The Marks of the Other...”; and idem, The City of the Three Mosques..., pp. 64–65.

13 A. Echevarría, “Política y religión...”.

14 P. León Tello, Los judíos..., doc. 80. All these movements may be followed in the books of properties of the canons. A. Echevarría, City of the Three Mosques..., pp. 77–78.

15 During the thirteenth century, the Roman legal concept of emphiteusis was still used in canon law to lease properties of the church. Emphiteusis consisted in a long-term lease with wider rights than the usual rental contract, like the possibility of continuing the lease for subsequent generations, the possibility to sublet the property, and the right to do any building works that were deemed necessary for the maintenance of the building or property (walls, mills, etc.).

16 M. Moratinos and O. Villanueva, “Consecuencias del Decreto...”, pp. 119–120; M. Gómez Renau, “La Aljama de Valladolid...”, pp. 148–150.

17 M. Moratinos and O. Villanueva, “Consecuencias del decreto...”, pp. 131–132.

18 “Por ende nos, acatando el servicio de Dios e ensalzamiento de su santa fe, e porque la familiaridad e compañia con los dichos moros es muy defendida en derecho e por leyes reales, e la participación con ellos es muy peligrosa e dapnosa (…) ordenamos e declaramos que los moros de los sobredichos que fuesen mudejares, se vayan en dicho tiempo a las morerias e casas e logares donde son vecinos e naturales, e que de aqui adelante el dicho señor rey non les de racion nin quitacion nin dadiva nin merced nin apostamiento a ellos nin a los otros, nin ellos la resciban de su señoria nin de otro por el; e los moros que son del regno de Granada e de otras partes, ordenamos e mandamos que si los tales moros son libres, salgan en el dicho tiempo de los regnos e señorios del rey nuestro señor e non esten nin tornen a ellos”. Memorias de Enrique IV, pp. 327–334.

19 “Porque de la continua conuersacion e uiuienda mezclada de los judios e moros con los christianos resultan grandes dannos e inconuenientes, e los dichos procuradores sobre esto nos han suplicado mandassemos proueer, ordenamos e mandamos que todos los judíos e moros de todas e quales quier cibdades e uillas e lugares destos nuestros reynos, quier sean de lo realengo o sennorios e behetrías e ordenes e abadengos, tengan sus juderías e morerías destintas e apartadas sobre si, e no moren a vueltas con los christianos, ni ayan barrios con ellos”, Cortes de los antiguos reinos..., vol. IV.

20 Such census would the basis for the calculations of subsequent taxes on the Muslims, the castellano de oro, but it was delayed by several years due to the resistance of the Mudejars and the difficulties of the different jurisdictions that were supposed to collect the relevant data. P. Ortego Rico, “Mudéjares castellanos...”, pp. 90–95.

21 AGS, section Registro General del Sello, 148005, n° 87.

22 C. Luis López and J.M.l López Villalba (eds.), Pleitos medievales...

23 AHN, Clero Secular-Regular, Avila, leg. 534–1, Censos de la morería.

24 11 January 1488. Archivo Histórico Provincial de Avila, Protocol 420, fol. 292r (cat. 1957), regarding the boundary lines of the mosque, which was located near the church of La Trinidad. Cited in Serafín de Tapia, La comunidad morisca de Ávila, Ávila-Salamanca, Universidad de Salamanca, 1991, p. 62.

25 AGS, section Registro General del Sello, 148011, n° 123. “Al tienpo que los apartamientos de los judios e moros se ovieron de faser, se apartaron los dichos moros dela dicha cibdad fuera della e les fue dado e asignado logar donde pudiesen faser su mesquita e almagid fuera de la dicha çibdad, el qual diz que fisyeron e deficaron, e lo tyenen, e han acostunbrado e acostunbran e que non enbargante que tyenen el dicho almagid que nin por eso dexan de benir al dicho primer almagid [...] e pidieron por merced que çerca dello les proveyesemos de rremedio con iustiçia mandando cerrar el dicho almagy o lo derrocar e allanar o como la nuestra merçed fuese, e nos tovymoslo por bien”.

26 E. Cantera Montenegro, “Las comunidades judía y mudéjar...”, p. 134.

27 Y. Moreno Moreno, “La interacción en el espacio...”; idem, Mudéjares en Talavera de la Reina..., pp. 271–275.

28 S. Allievi, Conflicts over Mosques..., pp. 13, 20.

29 S. Grayzel, The Church and the Jews..., vol. I, pp. 106–109, 137–139, 169, 283.

30 A. García Sanjuán, “Causas inmediatas...”; J. Torró Abad, “El problema del hábitat fortificado...”; C. de Ayala, “Jaime I y la sublevación...”, pp. 93–107.

31 Queen Juana, the wife of Enrique II of Castile (1369–1379), expelled the Jews of the synagogue of Valencia de Don Juan because they had enlarged and embellished it, and gave the building to the bishop of Oviedo. The new synagogue in Bembibre was turned into a Christian church because it had been built without permission. R. Ríos de la Llave, “Discrimination against the Jewish Population...”, p. 53.

32 English trans. P. Geary, Readings in Medieval History, pp. 762, 765.

33 J. Riera i Sans, Els poders públics.... I thank Dr. Javier Castaño for directing me to this invaluable book.

34 S. Allievi, Conflicts..., p. 23.

35 M. I. Calero Secall, “Algunas fetuas...”.

36 A recent study of the development of the city according to historiography and the use of cemeteries, in A. Echevarría, “Enterramientos y ritos funerarios...”.

37 J. Porres Martín-Cleto, “La mezquita toledana...”, pp. 416–418.

38 A. Echevarría and R.l Mayor, “Las actas de reunión...”, f. 7r, p. 270, 287.

39 A. Ruiz Taboada, “Resultados preliminares...”. https://contrataciondelestado.es/wps/wcm/connect/5f60c4e8-084b-4ee0-a117-3a45f2fabe29/01-memoria-mezquita-tornerias.pdf?MOD=AJPERES. Accessed 20/11/2020. I thank Dr. Ruiz Taboada for a wonderful visit to the excavations where we could exchange information about the mosque.

40 References in T. López Mata, “Morería y judería”, pp. 337–339; L. Araus and O. Villanueva, “Espacios, identidades y relaciones, p. 179.

41 L. Araus and O. Villanueva, “Espacios, identidades y relaciones...”, p. 179; L. Araus and O. Villanueva, “La identidad musulmana...”, pp. 538–539.

42 S. de Tapia, La comunidad morisca..., p. 61.

43 The cult of Saint Nicholas, bishop of Myra (whose relics were later taken to Bari), was related to long distance travellers and traders of different products in the whole of Europe. See W. Mezger, Sankt Nikolaus..., pp. 17–35, 83–86.

44 For instance, the faqihs of the three mosques disagreed on the practice of prayer on a goatskin, and had to seek other opinions from scholars in other cities. A. Echevarría, The City of Three Mosques..., p. 109.

45 S. Allievi, Conflicts..., pp. 42–43.

46 One of the chapters of Saḥnūn’s Mudawwana was devoted to the possibility of Muslims leasing houses to Christians to be used as churches, a practice that was discouraged. The mere fact that it appears in an outstanding work of masā’il means that the possibility was at least considered. A. García Sanjuán, “La formación de la doctrina...”, p. 145.

47 AGS, section Registro General del Sello, 148011, n° 123. I thank my colleague J. L. Pascual for this reference.

48 M. Moratinos and O. Villanueva, “Consecuencias del decreto....”, p. 124.

49 C. M. Ajo, Historia de Avila..., vol. III, p. 241. The mosque was mentioned already in 1411.

50 C. Delgado Valero, “El arte de Ifrīqiya...”, pp. 293–294.

51 O. Villanueva Zubizarreta and J. Jiménez Gadea, “Elementos decorativos góticos...”.

52 In 1396 and 1402, Mahomad Paton and his son Yuçef Paton hold leases from the cathedral chapter on the adjoining buildings. The witness to the documents was Don Yça, alfaquí of the city mosque, suggesting that the Alquibla Mosque did not yet have its own officers. Whether the fountain belonged to the mosque or when it was built is not specified, but the location near the river suggests a system of water collection that would make a construction of this kind possible. S. Tena, Libro de arrendamientos..., pp. 20, 174.

53 Like the transfer of the house that stands between the courtyard and the alley of the inner-city mosque from Halona, who held it in perpetual lease from the aljama, to Hoçeyne Yaya, treasurer of the Moorish aljama of Avila, for 50 silver reales. 20 July 1480, Archivo Histórico Provincial de Avila, Protocolo 420, fol. 276v in A. Echevarría, The City of the Three Mosques..., pp. 106–109.

54 S. Allievi, Conflicts..., pp. 14, 38–41.

55 It should be noted that the famous Council of Vienne (1311–1312) makes no mention of mosques or building, just forbids the call to prayer. O. R. Constable, “Regulating Religious Noise...”; A. Echevarría, “Marks...”, pp. 187, 191.

56 On this question and the call to prayer, see S. Allievi, Conflicts..., pp. 45–49, where he argues that it is a practice that is virtually performed inside the mosque.

57 “Once all the Muslims of the mentioned aljama and Muslim quarter had been called by Seymenia Calderera (“the Coppersmith”), wife of the late Montejo, Muslim, according to her testimony that she had called all of them for business to be discussed, following our custom”. M. Moratinos and O. Villanueva, “Consecuencias del decreto de conversión...”, p. 119. The translation is mine.

58 S. Allievi, Conflicts..., pp. 45–49.

59 A. Echevarría, City of the Three Mosques...., p. 110; A. Echevarría and R. Mayor, “Las actas de reunión...”, pp. 271, 274, 288, 290.

60 C. Almagro, “Religious Minorities’ Identity...”, p. 203.

61 With respect to Castilian Mudejars' feelings of helplessness upon the imminent removal of their traditional mosques and their efforts to ensure letters from the Crown that would guarantee nothing was going to change, see M.A. Ladero Quesada, Los mudéjares..., pp. 228–238.

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References

Electronic reference

Ana Echevarría Arsuaga, “Urban Development and Muslim Minorities in the Middle Ages: the Path to Invisibility ”Hamsa [Online], 7 | 2021, Online since 03 September 2021, connection on 30 November 2023. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/hamsa/1103; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/hamsa.1103

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